Haunted Cosmos - Psychedelic Demons

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Welcome the first episode of our new limited series for October, The Graveyard Shift! Did one of our listeners encounter a demon while using psychedelics? Watch to hear how the Lord used it to eventually change his life!Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes, monthly AMA's, and livestreams with Ben and Brian by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosBuy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!This episode is sponsored by: Zily Creative Works - bringing you face-to-face family fun that is fierce, fast, and affordable. Their new game, Escape Master, is available now at their website: Zilycreativeworks.com - use code “zcosomos” for 10% off your orderArmored Republic: Making Tools of Liberty for the defense of every free man’s God-given rights - Text JOIN to 88027 or visit: https://www.ar500armor.com/ This episode is sponsored by New Dominion Design Co. Visit their website here and learn more! http://newdominiondesignco.com/This episode is sponsored by Gray Toad Tallow. Visit their website here and use COSMOS15 at checkout for 15% off your order. https://graytoadtallow.com/Make Humble Love’s Magnesium Cream apart of your daily routine. Visit thehumblelifestore.com and use code NCP15 for 15% off your first jarThis episode is also sponsored by Stonecrop Wealth Advisors! Go to this link to check out their special offers to Haunted Cosmos listeners today. https://stonecropadvisors.com/hauntedcosmosSmall batch, hand-poured candles. Welcome to the resistance. https://resistancecandles.com/Jake Muller Adventures is an immersive, mysterious, and engaging audio drama. Use code "HAUNTED" to claim 10% off all digital downloads. https://www.jakemulleradventures.com/haunted/Support the show

This episode is brought to you by Zilli Creative Works, bringing you face-to-face family fun that is fierce, fast, and affordable. In this episode of The Graveyard Shift, we hear from an anonymous listener who has a very fascinating story about psychedelic use and quitting psychedelics. And then it went all the way up to what they call a hero's dose. You can experience ego death, which means you lose the concept of ego.

Right, yeah, of yourself. It kept trying to lure me further in, further in. And the more I kept looking at this door, the more it kept insisting. Then I was like, wait a minute, I think I can read what the words are on the door. The words were... The ego death, it's centric. It's like totally self-centric.

It serves you. 100%. Right, but nobody else. No one else. You knew it was spiritual. You knew there was some spiritual element. But you were filtering it through and saying, you know, I'm accessing God. This is to God's glory.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Graveyard Shift with Haunted Cosmos, a special new interview style show that we're doing. doing in the off season where we bring in people to the studio or have them call into the studio and tell us their craziest paranormal or high strangeness story. Today I am joined of course by my co-host, Brian Sovey. Brian say hello. Dude, it is so good to be here. Graveyard shifting it with you guys. It's so late. It is so late. It's so moody. The fire's crackling. It's actually 8.57 a.m. The mood is set. I think you know what we mean. I think you understand the

implication. Yeah, we tried to emphasize moodiness in this set. We also are joined by a very special guest who will remain nameless because he wishes to be anonymous as he tells this story. So everyone, please give a warm welcome to Anonymous. Hi, everybody.

Well done. Man, it is so good to respect your anonymity, which I would like to begin respecting by saying that Anonymous's social security number is 175 392-8-734. and he's from the state of Colorado. Yes.

And I would also like, we actually have a fourth very special guest, Brian's favorite special guest of the show, and his name is Hugh Jackman. Oh, no. Hugh, no. Hugh, please say hello. Absolutely.

Hello. We need to cut this out. Good morning. We need to cut it out. It cannot make the show. 8.50. Everybody has stopped listening. Okay.

Anyway. I'll never look at it. So, hey, anonymous, anonymous. guest here, how long you've been listening to Honest to Honest Cosmos? Honestly, since season one. Whoa.

I'm an OG for sure. Dude, we've got a lifer. No, it was, when did the psychedelics episode? That was season two, right? Psychedelics was season. Episode 10 of season two.

Yeah. We started the show in March of 2022. So it would have been sometime in 2023. 2022. Yeah, okay. Like early 2020. So I think I started listening like, there were maybe only three episodes.

Yeah, yeah. When I started listening. Really? Yeah. Man, that's nuts. That's nuts. What's your, is your favorite the psychedelics one? Well, it's one of my favorites. Yeah. But I think, uh, I don't know. I think Giants was one of my, because that one was more like, wait, this is actually real. Yeah. Like there, like Giants actually real. Everybody knows it.

Yeah. Well, now. Everyone should know that. Now they do. But I thought they were fake until that episode. And I remember hearing like pastors talk about Genesis 6. It's like, no, they're not real. It's all like a metaphor.

Yeah. No, it's actually not. Giants are really just people who were 5 foot 11. But they were bad. But they were bad. They were sinful. Now, I think giants, well, they had meant that one really screwed me up. They were sinful.

Oh, they were. To be clear. I just want to be clear. See our published work. Sorry. No, Hadman. That one was really good.

Yeah, that one was crazy. Hatman. Hatman was one of the ones that we, that was the first one that we got some negative feedback. People were like, wow. Well, yeah, because we didn't really warn anyone about like how creepy the subject kind of was. Yeah, yeah. We just kind of went into it. And some folks had their little kids listening.

And then they all of a sudden the little kids start seeing the Hatman. That didn't happen. Okay. I mean, I didn't. Now, let me ask you this. What kind of like drew you to the subject matter? Why were you interested in this type of thing? I mean, that time of my life, I was kind of, I don't know, trying to get answers.

I was deep in like the tech world where there's a lot of deception. And I've always been a Christian, right? I grew up Christian. But I started to question a lot of that kind of stuff. Like, is this real? Is, like, you know, is Christianity real? And I essentially became so modernized that I wanted, I was looking for something that would take me back to older truths.

And that's how I came across on the cosmos. I am older truths. I think it's time. Yeah, that was a segue. You got a great story for us to tell firsthand. And take us in. We'll try not to interrupt you. Yeah, first one, let me just explain to the audience.

What we're going to do is let. the anonymous guest tell his story pretty much from start to finish and we're going to do our very, very best to not interrupt him at all. And then after that, we'll kind of get into it, ask some questions, and hopefully have a good discussion.

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I'm going to set this scene just to kind of give a little bit of context, but everything started with a friend that I went to church with that introduced me to psychedelics, specifically solosybin mushrooms. And he asked me one time, you know, if I ever tried microdosing. And I had no idea what that even meant. I'm like, no. So he gave me a few half-gram capsules of, cellosybin mushrooms. So essentially they're ground up, they're put into capsules.

And it was more of a way for me to, kind of what he was doing it for was this idea of biohacking. You know, you can enhance your performance at work. You can think better, be more creative. And having been sort of in the tech world, eventually I found out that a lot of people were doing this. It was actually normal for a lot of people to microdose. And so, you know, I tried a couple of times. It was kind of mild. It was nothing crazy. And in sort of this pursuit of like biohacking, you know, I had tried a bunch of stuff.

And this one kind of seemed to be the one that didn't, like it was like it was not an amphetamine where like it got you wired up. It wasn't cannabis either where kind of it was too much of a downer. It was sort of in between, right? So I slowly began to, you know, try multiple things, including this microdosing thing. At the time, I had also kind of experimented a lot with cannabis, cannabis use in multiple ways. Like I'm talking about wax, flour, like edibles. I've never even heard of half of these.

It's all the different ways that you can essentially ingest cannabis. And so I was already kind of dependent on it. Like it got to the point where I couldn't operate unless I smoked. And then you, you know, you throw in the microdosing thing on top of that. I eventually got connected with somebody that hooked me up with essentially like a tincture of, what do you call it? It's like an extract that they make themselves with psilocybin mushrooms. I started doing that almost all the time. Then it just kind of like the, it wasn't a crazy experience.

It was more like, oh, I can think a little bit more openly. But in reality, it was an illusion, probably. And then I was like, I need to try more. So I did, that was like, you know, was doing about a gram max. So then I tried two and then three. And then it went all the way up to what they call a heroes dose, which is five grams of mushrooms. That is what they call like ego death. You can experience ego death, which means you lose the concept of ego.

Right, yeah, of yourself. You have no idea what's going on. You don't know where you are, really. The crazy thing is I never really experienced that. It was more like I would get stuck in thoughts. And then I would pursue one thought and go as deep as I could. and then go to another one. And I would do that for hours when I did these five gram or more doses.

And I only did it like three times. It wasn't like something I frequented. And that was over about a year. Well, where it gets kind of crazy is, you know, I talked about the mixture of cannabis and cellosite mushrooms. So one Saturday, after I had done a bunch of yard work, I was like, I'm done, I'm going to chill. So I took three grams, which is supposed to chill you, but not like really give you a lot of psychedelic effects.

And at this point, I actually had grown my own mushrooms. I figured out how to do it. It's legal, by the way, to grow. It's technically legal to have the spores. And you can actually like do everything up to the point that they grow. So this was like how you went deep, deep, deep. I was deep, deep. How long did it take you from like trying it to you're literally producing your own psychedelic

drugs in your domicile? About like nine months. Dude, that is crazy. And you're Christian old time like going to church. Going to church. I talked at the time I talked to my pastor and I said, hey, I'm doing this. What do you think? His answer was, well, it's just like medicine.

You should be fine. I see. Yeah. And so not only did I have a bad pastor at the time. It started with just like, like I'm trying something quick. And I believed, I was convinced that this was from God. Wow.

Okay. Like a gift. Like a gift. Yeah. In fact, this is so sad now thinking back. But the whole idea of died to yourself. Oh, yeah. I associated with ego death.

Wow. Okay. And so it was like, I mean, I'm telling you this deceptive stuff. Yeah. And I eventually, you know, got a group of Christian friends that I'm like, hey, what do you think of this? And a lot of those guys had tried, but they're like, no, I only did it for fun. And I'm like, no, did you know you can actually grow, like, in your faith if you do this graph?

You were like evangelizing psychedelic mushrooms. Are you an alien? No. Yes, it got to the point where I was getting Christians to, like, that had never tried to try. Yeah. once I was convinced that this was sinful. I actually went to each one of them and repented. And I asked for the forgiveness.

Praise God. I tell them, dude, I'm really, really sorry. And a lot of them, a couple guys were like, I knew you were kind of crazy. Like, yeah. Like I, you know, I threw away the stuff you gave me. I'm like, thank God. Some other guys were like, oh, I thought this was like really good for me.

Like, it helped me, you know, blah. Anyway, this is where, like, that just kind of gives you context, right? Of how deep I was into this stuff, how I believed it was from God, including the cannabis. I'm like, you know, at the time I told my wife, I'm probably going to just always, for the rest of my life, smoke cannabis, because I can't survive without it. Like, I can't think. I kind of go into spiral mode. And thank God that's no longer the case. But so, you know, back to the story, I had done yard work around the house, and I took three grams. And nothing was happening.

Like, I'm like, okay, normally, you know, 30 minutes in, you feel something. You get the wave is what they call it. Like, everything you're looking at kind of moves like a wave. And now of that, I was like, whatever. I'm going to go smoke. So I went and smoked like two bowls of, like modern cannabis is, bread to be stronger, like significantly

stronger than it was even 10 years ago. Anyway, I'm not even done with the second one and things just kind of hit. I had gone into, I had this little shed. I went into the shed. That's where I smoked and started to do my thing. For some reason, the cannabis really augmented

the cellosybin effect. Like, exponentially, to the point that the three milligrams that I did fell stronger than six that I had done before. Wow. Thanks. So it was more than double as far as like I was out.

Like perceived effect. Yeah, the perceived effect. And what I mean by out is I wasn't fully there like in my body. Like the best way to explain it is it felt like I was detached from my body. And I kind of drifted into a trance. It was really weird. I don't know how long it lasted. I think it.

It felt like, you know, you go to bed and you wake up. You don't know how much time has passed. That's kind of what I felt like. I suddenly was like in a dark tunnel. This is the craziest part to me because I have never seen this in movies or anything like that that I can think of. It was a dark tunnel underground that led to a much bigger void, like a huge void, like filled with an incredibly massive bright blue light. And there's something about the blue light. that I'll get back to.

But imagine like a 120-floor building, like a massive skyscraper. Like that's how deep this hole was underground. And it was really deep underground because in my mind I remember trying to kind of see, you know, like is there like anywhere? Couldn't see anything. It was absolutely huge. And the tunnel I was in was just one of hundreds that essentially led to this massive void. So imagine just like a big hole underground and a bunch of tunnels that led to that. big hole where they came from I don't know but that's how it looked like um and uh it was at

that moment that uh everything just kind of felt peaceful it was really weird it felt peaceful bliss like it i don't really know how to explain it but every ounce of concern worry anxiety that i probably had leading to the experience gone like completely gone um Then I noticed something, someone, sort of trying to hold my hand, like in front of me. And it felt like it wanted to lead me further into this tunnel into the massive blue light. And then I remember looking at my own arm and it was also glowing blue. And there was this blue hue to everything. Now, this is all in my head, right?

Like I'm I'm literally just staring out of wall. And like, like my body was actually staring at a wall. Yeah. And this thing appeared to have a mission to take me deeper and deeper into this massive void toward this big blue light. And it felt like two entities. It felt like the entity in front of me was drawing the end toward another entity. You know when you can tell like you're about to go see somebody and someone's driving you there like when you're in a Uber?

Yeah. And the Uber, you know the Uber driver is an entity as a person. And the destination where you're going, that's another person. That feeling. So like the blue light was an entity or there was just? The blue light was an entity. Yeah. That's what it felt like.

Like it felt like that thing was waiting for me, right? I didn't hear any voices. Sounds nothing. Just peace. Really, really calm. At that moment, I wonder, well, am I experiencing an angel? and I'm being taken to the presence of God. Wow.

Keep in mind, I was deceived. I believed that the stuff I was doing was a good thing. Yeah. Wow. So, and I'm like, I'm like excited at this point. I'm about to meet God. I'm like, wait, am I dead? Like, what is this?

What's going on? That's crazy. And it was as though my spirit was no longer in my body at that point, but like somewhere else. Then I remember, like, it keeps. Keep in mind, this is like, there's no sense of time. So I could have said it felt like two minutes or two hours. I really don't know. But then I looked over to my right, like my cardinal body.

I look over to the right toward the door of the shed that I was in. Remember, this was a shed that I would go to smoke. That was like my little smoke shed. And I would go there multiple times a day at my worst, you know, when I was just so dependent on cannabis. And sometimes even in the middle of the night, like I would wake up at 2 a.m. unable to sleep. Then I would just go out. Even if it was snowing, raining, it didn't matter.

That's how bad this was. And every time I would go in there, I, you know, I would smoke and wait till the effects kind of came on and then just go to sleep or go to work, whatever I needed to do. And every time I would take a lot, like my torch lighter that I would use to light up, the, the cannabis with. And I would just like start drawing shapes on the on the door like burn into it. Because it was it was a wooden door. And it was a kind of what I did while I waited to get high essentially. Then this thing as it tried to lure me in like deeper into this void, into this tunnel.

It, it was like it was like I was turning on a source. between seeing this thing trying to pull me. And by the way, this thing never touched me. Okay. It never touched my hand. It was trying to and it was signaling at me. I could see this come. It was trying to hold your hand at one point. It was trying to, but I never did. It never actually touched me. It was all 100% left up to me. Interesting. Like you had to take the final. I had to make a decision to follow. Interesting. And I was hesitant. I remember just kind of, you know, as I was kind of walking toward this void through this tunnel. Then at one point, I just kind of kept looking at the door and I felt like something, you know, in my own carnal body,

was kept looking at this door and trying to figure out what are these shapes? What does it say? Because remember, I wasn't fully in my mind, right? Yeah. So it, it is just, it, it kept trying to, like, lure me further in, further in. And the more I kept looking at this door, the more it kept insisting. Wow. Like, it was almost like, you know, when somebody tells you, let's go, right?

And it's, it's kind of like, hey, we should go in a minute versus like, let's go, let's go. We have to go now. Yeah. Yeah. It got to this point where it was almost frustrated that I wasn't paying attention to it. And somehow I kept looking at the door. Then I was like, wait a minute. I think I can read what the words are on the door and what the shape, you know, above it is.

The words were solely Deo Gloria that I had burned into the door over like months. And the shape was a cross. Like actually or in the vision? No, like I had burned this into the door over, months. Okay. So I wrote Soledale Gloria on the door. Like I burnt it into the door. Glory to God alone. Yep. Glority to God alone. Yeah. Thank you. And I had just drawn like a cross at the very top. And then, you know, it was all kind of in a circle and there were little like things that I had burnt into it. But that was like the thing. Yeah. And at that moment I was like,

wait, I need, this isn't right. So I remember pausing sort of spiritually. Like my, think of, I'm thinking of myself as two, like two beings, right? Like there's my spirit, there's my body. My body kept looking at the door. My spirit was trying to keep walking. But at this point, it goes, wait. So I paused 100%.

And then everything happened really quickly. But in that moment I said, wait, this isn't God. This is a cheap counterfeit. And then I told it, like, you're not the one that died on that cross that was that I had burned into the door or what it signified. And the glory is not yours being glory to God alone, solely do, Gloria. And just as quickly as I kind of fell into the trance, everything went away. Wow. And I kept in my mind, I was like, wait, no, I want to experience that again, almost immediately.

Interesting. But it's like, no, I sort of found an anchor in my believing in God in experiencing the true God versus this cheap counterfeit. And the moment I realized that that was, that's where Jesus died, like the cross. The moment I thought his name is when everything went away. Wow. And that's when I knew that was demonic. It was not. That was not God.

That was not God. Please at the name of Christ. Correct. Yeah. And it, from that point on, I was like, this is, this is crazy. Like, it, there's, there's something real about this. And there's something, like, I try, I, I spent hours just thinking about what, what did I just experience? Like, over, over a couple of weeks.

Well, the result of that in, what, by the way, what finally kind of sealed the deal for me was your episode on psychedelics. Wow. Because I remember at the time being like, I wish I could, I don't feel comfortable with what I'm hearing from my current pastor. It seems cheap, if that makes sense. It doesn't seem genuine. It doesn't seem like it's the real answer. And then I heard that episode.

And I was like, I have to be done. So I quit like taking any kind of, and by the way, like the psychedelic thing I had done. just cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, and LSD. Surprisingly, LSD is much more calmer than cellosybin. I never did anything harder than that. There's DMT, there's 5-Meo DMT,

there's salvia, there's all these other things. Never did anything like that. I just kind of did the lifestyle, LSD and the lifestyle kind of celibin. And of course, all the cannabis. Well, I quit cold turkey. like from one day to another, which was absolutely miserable.

From listening to the episode? After listening to the episode and being convicted that I had been sinning against God. I was literally cheating on God with the idea of different entities. I'm still God's though. And so at that point, it's like,

okay, now it's up to you to, you can keep flirting with this stuff or you can just cut it and be done with it. Yeah. So I never took any more psychedelics and I never smoked marijuana ever again. And in one, like, there was one year where like things just weren't great for me. And that's when I smoked the most marijuana. Yeah.

I smoked a pound in a year of marijuana. I have no context for this, but that sounds like a lot. That sounds like a lot. It's like rapper. It's like like, like. Like two chains. Like two chains. What's the, the dog rapper?

Snoop dog. Snoop dog. Snoop rapper. Um, that dude. Like, I just think of him because he's like constantly stoned. Yeah. And some of those guys don't smoke a pound in a year. It's just a lot.

A lot. Yeah. Yeah. You were deep. I was deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. Yeah. And yeah. I thought it was okay.

I thought it was from God. I thought it was a gift. And, but after that experience and then after listening, to your episode and then seeing like cultures that engage in psychedelics end up doing this, this, this, and that. Yeah. And I was like, serpent worship, child sacrifice, human sacrifice, child sacrifice, and psychedelic drugs all go together. Yeah. Again, that Lewis Ungit book, the return of the dragon.

Yeah. Correct. Yep. And I remember just hearing that and being like, yeah. That is not what I'm after. It's interesting to see the progression for you because it was like, and it's, you know, you, you made this, you, we've talked about this before. But the, the tech world has this biohacking kind of microdosing culture where they're big into psychedelics and they're big into kind of, you know, trying to optimize the human form for creativity and tech work and all this kind of like transcending to another plane. But it's interesting to see how for you that went from a biohacking thing to, you knew it was spiritual. You knew there was some spiritual element. But you were filtering it.

through and saying, oh, but this is, you know, I'm accessing God. This is to God's glory. Yes. How the deception worked. Look at the, yeah, like look at the fruit. I'm dying to myself. Oh, look at ego death is like dying to yourself. Yeah.

When it's just absolutely not for the listeners. That's no. It's false. It's not actually what that passage is about. No. It first started with this like, I didn't gain this understanding of, you know, the carnal and the spiritual sort of being like so close together. Yeah.

Until Hon. Cosmos. Like that opened my eyes to that. Before I started doing psychedelics, in my mind, it was more like I'm enhancing the flesh, but I'm not even touching the spirit. Interesting. Yeah. Right.

And that's actually where the slippery slope begins. Yep. Because that's when you go, oh, I'm just going to think more clearly. I'm going to do a better job for God's glory. Like I'm telling it. It's so foolish to believe that. I'm going to do this for God's glory. It's like I'm going to go murder somebody for God's glory.

And murder is murder. Murder doesn't touch the spirit? Yeah. Just in the flesh. I'm just a hitman. It's my day job. Correct. Like that's how I saw it.

And so it wasn't until that experience. And you know how I mentioned the whole blue thing? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what it is. But I started thinking about references about blue things. Like the Aladdin genie is blue things. Like the Aladdin genie is blue.

The way that angels or supernatural light is normally portrayed on, like movies, tends to be blue. And a different time prior to me having that experience, I was going to bed and all of a sudden I went into a trance too. Nothing crazy, but I just saw myself like in bed glowing blue. Wow. So I don't, you know, there's something to that. but it was like really bright white light with this surrounding hue blue around. By the way, that was only the entities that did that.

Interesting. The actual room or the actual tunnel was not blue. It was like just a regular underground cave, right? But it was only the entities that were glowing blue. The entities were another element that's interesting to me that I think proves out a lot of what we've talked about on the show. Well, first of all, I'm thankful here that that episode is helpful. Yeah, praise God.

You know, like that's one of the reasons we set out to make this show. It's like, in a materialist world, people are very vulnerable to the schemes of immaterial, satanic, demonic, spiritual beings. They're not equipped because they don't think they're real. And so, and I'm not saying that was your case, but it leaves people very prone to deception. it's interesting to see the doorways that can come through. But what was interesting to me that confirms what we see in a lot of different phenomena

is this concept of there's still a kind of sovereignty of a person. There's still a kind of permission, a willing. 100%. And you see it show up in like vampire lore. They can't cross the threshold out being invited in. Black-eyed kids. They're trying to be invited in.

Mothman is similar to that. Monct is trying to be invited in. Black men in black trying to be invited in. A lot of demonic phenomenon is aiming to persuade, deceive a person into saying, I want this. Yeah. And it sounds to me like what was happening in the war between the Holy Spirit and you, I would say, and your flesh and these demonic entities.

They're trying to say, let me love bomb you. Let me wash you in this perfect feeling of peace. It's not a true piece. It didn't. None of the circumstances of your life causing anxiety at that time. Did they really solve? No, they weren't. They got worse because of this.

But they would give you this momentary illusion of total peace. And then they start saying, now come further in and I'll give you more peace. Yeah. But you know what happens if you take the hand of that entity or if you give yourself to it completely. It reminds me of Genesis 4, 6. Is that where Cain is? is having his discourse with God. Yeah, yeah.

And God says, you know, sin is crouching at your door and you, you must overcome it or you may overcome it. It's desire is for you. It's desire is for you. But you must rule over it. You must rule over it. And how even that kind of is a, like Lynn's credence to this idea that it's almost a mercy of God, that there has to be this continual consent.

Yeah. On the, like they're, they still, to your point, like there's a level of individual sovereignty and the freedom of the will where you, you still have responsibility. Absolutely. That can serve to condemn you. But it's also in a sense, like a real mercy. It's a limit that I think God places. Right. 100%.

It's like, no, you have to want this. I can't just make, I can't just drag you in. You have to want to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and even the effort to, like, there's a, strong physical effort and mental effort that you have to exert when you are engaged with psychedelics.

Yeah. Because it changes everything. Like your perspective of everything changes. Yeah. And but to your point, like, nothing ever touched me. Yeah. Nothing ever forced me. But it gave me that illusion.

It's like if you just keep walking, you're going to experience X, Y, and Z. We'll bring you to God. Well, and that was my, and that's literally what I was thinking. Like, I'm about to experience Jesus. And I was so thankful in that moment, by the way. I'm like, thank you, Lord. And I kept thinking that. Yeah.

Like gratitude. Until I looked at the door and I realized, no, no, no. The glory is to God alone. Yeah. Like, that's what hit me across the face. It was like, no glory to this cheap counterfeit. And when I thought, I didn't say it because the whole time I was silent. uh,

Jesus, the name of Jesus. Like he died on the cross and to him be all the glory. It's when it vanished. Wow. And it only like that in a really visceral way that kind of shows you just how, just how inverted the whole message was.

It is like you're getting that. It's kind of like a, like a hologram of a carrot, you know, where when you're in it, all the stress does go away. Then when you get out of it, the stress is not,

still there, but to your point, it kind of compounds. Versus what, like, part of what Christ showed in his earthly ministry was there's actually no cheat code and there's no way around dying to yourself means literally my body is dying. Like, the only way to get to the peace is to walk through that stress of redemption and sanctification. Death, barrel and resurrection. All the while, knowing that you're upheld by the grace of God and the strength of God, and that's the point is it's not your strength. but it is still you walking through it.

100%. Well, in the psychedelic world, you know, there's different stages, right? In the final stage they call breakthrough, where it's where you finally break through whatever anxiety or whatever stress or whatever concern you had kind of going into the experience. And I didn't get there, but I started to experience that. And it almost seemed like this thing was leading me toward this blue light to experience breakthrough, what they would call breakthrough.

Well, at the end of the day, like, you know, I stopped. I did the thing. But the lesson was for me, one is God's peace isn't cheap. You're not, it's not like, take this pill and you'll experience peace. Right. Because that's essentially what I was being sold with this whole psychedelic experience. The second thing is psychedelics are not for Christians to use. I, and I still have Christian friends that are like, no, I think, you know, there's medicinal.

I'm like, no, there isn't. Like, maybe cannabis in some. like crazy extreme way might be beneficial nowadays we can isolate the THC-9 so you can actually get the you know like CBD for example and inflammation whatever I still think there's more honor and just suffering through it than then to like go get high yeah I mean I have family members who smoke themselves into paranoia um like not skits not real schizophrenia but kind of like a sort of paranoia that ended up being just isolated from all other family destroyed relationships, turn them into a shell of themselves. And the whole way along

the road, they think that the pot, that the cannabis is helping them. They think it's calming them down. It's giving them. And what it's doing is it's actually destroying their mind. Well, yeah. And it's, it's insulating. It's putting up more layers of insulation to real community. Yes. To the community to the same. To real solution of your problems. Exactly. Correct. Like you're 100%. And we, you know, we know our anonymous guest, but I know even we've talked about some of the circumstances and the anxiety you were in the middle of in that dark season. And to come back to it, like, it's offering a false solution. Correct. The real solution of death, burial, and resurrection is you're, you're dying to yourself. You are laying down your life. You are repenting of sins. You're turning from habits that

are like all of these difficult things, facing them head on by grace and through faith, with the help of the Lord brings real resolution to them and has. And has. But the psychedelics and these entities, they're not interested in giving you peace. They're interested in swallowing your soul. And from, you know, you're a husband and a father. From that perspective, and you're supposed to love your family the way that Christ loves the church, especially your wife, the way that Christ loves the church, who gave himself up

for her, the ego death is an ego death. It's centric. It's like totally self-centric. it serves you. 100%. Right, but nobody else. No one else. Like in that period, and again, I know that we can say this because you've repented.

Like your family was also suffering. A hundred percent. And the relief that you got gave them actually less relief. Yeah. It was. And so it's like the dying, the ego death was totally inverted. They needed you to be self-ruled not to just have this. Oh, I'm nothing.

I've become one with the demonic spirit. Right. So when Christ's dragon spirit, when Christ died, great, but could we like have dad back? Yeah. Yeah. You know, like when Christ died to himself, it benefited the world. Right. Literally everybody.

And when a Christian man dies to himself, to himself. Yeah. It actually leads to the flourishing and good of his wife and children and community at large. You know, his church. Yeah. There's, I mean, there's, there's honor and glory in doing what you just said. Yeah. Versus what I was doing.

But in part of it. was the shame. I'm like, I did everybody wrong. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, I did my wife wrong. I did. She at one point said, I was just waiting to figure out if I was going to have to get a different husband. Like, I thought you were going to die. Dang. And I'm like, that was hard to hear because I'm like, I was that big of a coward. And that's what pushed me to just say, I'm done from one day to another. Right. One thing I learned with the, the cannabis thing is that to all of those Christians who are still on the fence, no, it might still be good. Here's a thing. It's a slow way to kill the will to survive. Yeah. It's a slow death.

Wow. It's worse than dying by a thousand paper cuts. It is, it is, you don't feel the pain until you don't have it and then you go do more. And it's like, it's like a frog that's dying and boiling water. You know, like you keep turning out the temperature. You don't feel it. You think you're fine, but you're not. You're actually not. And so the last thing that I learned from this is, you know, true peace is not found away from reality. But it's found in accepting the condition which God has placed us.

And that is essentially what led to true contentment. Because I wasn't content. I was not satisfied. I was not happy. I needed more something else. a new way to find, you know, more creativity to excel at my work, et cetera. And it made everything worse. Yeah.

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pack check out gray toad tallow.com don't forget to use the code cosmos 15 that's all caps cosmos 1 5 for 15% off your order don't do cannabis don't do drugs kids don't do drugs right yeah the dare officer you know what's interesting to me and maybe we we just end here but i have one more thing and you is that it's so funny to me that the passage says that in any temptation, God always provides like a door of escape, a way of escape. And that in your case, it was literally symbolized in a door. A door. I never even thought about that.

Made that said solely day of door. God's like, I cannot make this more obvious. Do you want to escape from the demons or do you want to go and be consumed? by them. I don't know how to put it more clearly than that. But here's the door. I think it's not, there's no levity to it. Like I was going to say God has a sense of humor, but it's more like God just, there are moments in your life where you wonder whether it was the voice of God in his providence or just, you know, normal human wisdom or whatever. But this is just a moment where like the Lord was there. Yeah. And he was watching over you. And he turned you in

that moment and he appointed that time and he said, this is going to be the moment where, um, I'm going to free my servant from this. And I mean, and that should be great assurance for you. And for anyone listening, maybe struggling with similar stuff. Like, Christ says that any who come to him shall not fall away. And I mean, what a case and point. Like, even though, Paul says this, I think it's to Titus. Maybe it's to Timothy.

But he says, even if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. Yeah. Which is to say, like, when we become adopted, we become a part of Christ's body. and he can't deny himself. So he's not going to let you fall away. Yep. Like he'll pull, he'll move literally, move heaven and earth to save even the, even the single lamb that goes astray.

Wow. One thing that it made me think of, this is much more on like a, not a scientific level, but a more technical level. I was listening to this Instagram reel with Huberman, and he was talking about how he was talking to one of his friends who's like a leading neurosurgeon and he asked him, how much of the stuff in medical textbooks that we're teaching students today is just wrong. And we know it's just wrong.

But we haven't gotten to update everything. And the guy said about 60% conservatively. Wow. 60%. Yeah. Huberman. Huberman Labs, yeah. And it's just dead wrong.

And Huberman's follow up was, and what do you think the cost, like, what has been the cost of that? And the guy said it's totally incalculable. Like there's been massive death and cause from this. And it got me thinking, it's not really directly related to this, but it got me thinking about how you see parallels to what you experienced in so many of these ancient myths and these mysteries, these like Ellucinian right type things where people go and they want to experience the ego death.

And then for centuries, we thought that was ridiculous and stupid. And then you get guys like for all of his faults, Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst, who started to, to look at like dreams and visions. And he's assuming all these things that are bad. But one thing that he noticed is like those people when they're in these experiences, they're not acting out anything physically. Like they're not participating physically with what's happening.

Right, right. But it is real. Like, yeah. And it has a profound effect on the rest of their life and the way that they live. And so these things with the Ellucinian rights, your experience at a more individual level, like people may be tempted to write that off as, oh, he's just seeing things.

Like the drugs don't actually make you see anything real. It's just constructs of the mind. But I think like to Huberman's point, to Jung's point, and to your point, and really to the point of the Bible, these things actually are all connected. And there's a ton that we just don't know. Yeah, there's, there are things that that's one of the key points is that epistemic humility, this humility about the nature and extent of our knowledge, how we, know what we know, what we know, we have to start with the assumption that our knowledge is so far short of reality that we need to obey God, especially in areas where we're like, I just don't see why I can't do that, why I shouldn't do that, why I'm not allowed to do that. And the reason is that we need

to obey us, because God created us. He knows all things. He knows things that are, it's like when you tell your three-year-old something, and you're like, no, just trust me, don't do this. And they're like, I have no idea. That sounds like the greatest thing ever. And you're like, it will literally, you will die if you do this. And they're like, ah, what is dying? They don't even know. You know, like that's, and we're so much further from God than a three-year-old to an adult. Yeah.

Like, it's not even calculable. So we do need to obey. It's like in perlandra when the, the unman is tempting the green lady, like, what's the point of not sleeping on the fixed land? Like, that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. And ransom tells the green lady, isn't, doesn't perfect love. require obedience precisely when you don't understand. Yes, exactly.

That is the key point. And that's so much of what God is trying to teach us as infants to an adult, but even more so. If you want to experience perfect love, then you have to learn how to just obey with the light. Well, and that's what the cold turkey thing was for me. Just obey. Yeah.

Like everyone I've talked to. Like, I know a lot of people that have been in this world and continue to be able. You know, afterwards it would come to me at like business events, networking events and bring like a random thing for me to hit. Like, oh, you know, try this one. It's a new strain. You know, it's this wax that it's got this other thing and these molecules now, you know, they're stronger, whatever. Literally.

Like, that's how it is. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm done. Nope. And they're like, what do you mean you're done? I'm like, I don't smoke anymore. They're like, well, you have to wing off. Like, no, you don't understand.

I quit 100% cold turkey. I'm done. And these guys were like, how are you doing that? Like, can you sleep? No. Like, it was like a week of like crazy insomnia. You know, can you operate? I don't know.

I'm trying, right? It was, but in, I didn't, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand why it felt so hard. But I relied on this, just obey. Like you know this is what you need to do. So just freaking do it. Yeah. And do it with all your might until you'll probably sleep because you're so tired after a week of not sleeping.

And that's worth it. Yeah. There's this verse, probably my favorite passage in the Old Testament. It's in Lamentations 3 where Jeremiah is done, well, he's paused talking about the destruction of his home. And he says, this I call to mine and therefore I've hoped the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. Great is your faith. All this stuff.

And then there's one line that's overlooked a lot where it says, it's good for a young man to bear the yoke in his youth. And there's something there that I think speaks to the reality of sanctification where you're in it and you're trying to obey and it's just painful and hard. And you're like, but why? Like God, why, why, why? And he doesn't always answer. And part of why is because his wisdom is above ours.

It's unsearchable. But he promises us, but it's good to bear the yoke. it's like I'm not going to give this to you not for your good so just faithfully endure it yeah yeah all right well hey thanks for coming and sharing your story that was honestly blew me away I mean amazing we're thankful to be some small part of it and just hope that it helps me away oh my goodness so thanks thanks for joining us we're honored to to have you it's been a pleasure guys thank you for the content you guys I've been making you got it well guys thanks for listening or watching here on YouTube or wherever you're listening in if you like

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