Member-only story
How To Recreate a Religious Experience
It’s pretty easy to meet God if you know how.
Sit alone in a dark room with a candle and a mirror. Wait until 3 A.M. Look into the mirror while chanting Latin until the vision begins to shift. You can see dead ancestors, animals, and gods if you stare long enough.
Or you can attend a seance (Also in a dark room.) Hold hands with an old woman that smells like patchouli and warm cinnamon, as she speaks to the spirits in a throaty, cigarette-dry voice. In the vacuum of space beyond the veiled table dark shapes begin to move. Your heart feels like a violin with tight strings. It’s become easier to believe in life after death.
Go to a cathedral with a lot of beautiful stained-glass depictions of Saints. After the candles have been lit and the prayers have said, look up into the vaulted ceiling and imagine the sky while the choir sings. In your imagination they become angels, and the frisson that runs down your spine feels like God’s fingers.
Travel to the woods alone with a gallon of water, your favorite music, and plenty of hallucinogens. Ingest the drugs, turn off notifications on your phone, and slip into easy communication with the oneness around you.
Some estimate that one in three people have had a religious experience. An experience that can include a sense of spiritual awe, a feeling that time or…
