Hey all,

A profound experience I had recently, without the aid of any drugs.

So a bit of preamble:

In September I returned to the church. I'd started praying again on a feeling back in last Winter but didn't think to return to an actual parish until an ex invited me to a youth group. Said youth group quickly became one of the best things in my life so naturally I expanded my involvement with the community... I attend mass and play music and volunteer and so on.

Still, despite having found this new community and becoming more and more involved, I would go home some nights and feel just as lonely and excluded as always. Somehow I felt like an imposter; like I was an actor in a play and everyone could see through me; nobody had a real need for me, etc etc.
I felt I should complete some of the initiation rites I never did as a child before I strayed from religion (ie confirmation), because here I was trying to blend in with all these good and honest people as a half-assed deadbeat who came back out of convenience. Somehow though I couldn't work up the conviction to make an effort towards that goal.

Then one night our priest gave us something of a sermon about confession. Initially I thought I could not confess to the priest, out of shame... but a special opportunity was set up for us and many of the other youth were also confessing so I decided to as well (at the very end of the night, but I did).

I confessed a lifetime's worth of sin, since the time of my last confession—my first communion in the third grade. I confessed how I neglected the gift of my life, gave in to my thoughts of suicide and running away, let myself be depressed and ignore my gifts, let myself be made weak for uears by pornography and apathy, how I can't bring myself to forgive the people who have hurt and humiliated me even after years. It was a lot and I was shaking in the booth as I ran through it all.


I don't remember much of what the priest said after. I was sort of in disbelief that I had shared so much. But what I do remember clearly is when he said: "you are absolved of your sins."

And so it was.

I felt an immense light permeate my whole being. Years of guilt and sadness were lifted from my spirit in that moment. It sounds like woo-woo nonsense but it's true. My whole attitude shifted in just that one instant. I could hardly suppress a smile later, when I returned to the pews. Days later I still feel it. My place in the community and among my peers hasn't changed but my outlook has. I feel at peace... I feel more solid and I feel less jealous and dejected.

God is real, whatever God is. I'm not saying Christianity alone got it right. I'm not saying I can begin to know or conceive of what God could be. Nonetheless I know that there is something and that something is what we call God. This spiritual presence that we experience on DMT, shrooms, whathaveyou... it's the same.

Just thought I'd share something different.