This article is kind of weird. If you are expecting a nice, normal discussion of faith, I would recommend a different article, or perhaps a different website. Additionally, these are mostly half-baked thoughts, I still hav much research to do regarding this.

In this article, I want to talk about my perspective on spiritual experiences in modern Christianity. First, I will explain what I mean. Second, I will attempt to communicate the nature of these spiritual experiences in words. Thirdly, and with great caution, I will propose a theory for how this sensation fits into the broader context of human experience. Fourthly, I will talk about the dangers of relying on this sensation.

I am going to step on a lot of toes in the writing of this article, so I want to make sure I am stepping on the toes I want to be stepping on, and no one else's. The term “spiritual experience” is very subjective, because as humans, we are always having experiences, and spiritual people may interpret any experience through the lens of spirituality. This is amplified if you happen to believe that everything happens for a reason. If you believe that, all experiences become meaningful.

No, in this article I am referring to a very specific type of experience. These experiences:

• Are outside of “normal” human experience.
• Are entirely personal, though an external event may trigger it.
• Manifest themselves in the form of intense emotions.

Note that I am not talking about a set of different experiences. I am talking about “the one” experience. This experience may be attributed to a movement of the Holy Spirit within a persons soul. It has been called by teenagers the “Camp High”, although church camps are hardly the only place where these experiences occur.

If the previous section didn't make any sense to you, it probably means you haven't experienced this. Christians will usually say that it is indescribable. Or, better yet, they will contextualize it within their belief system, which hardly does outsiders much good. This is fine, of course, unless you want to get to the bottom of what they are experiencing.

I have experienced this quite a bit in my life. And, I do have to say that it is very hard to explain, so your Christian friends aren't just being obtuse. It is a truly incredible feeling, and completely outside of normal emotional or mental experience. I would describe it as:

• Frission
• Enlightenment
• Love
• Peace

You may see where this is going.

This is the part of the article where things get weird.

I need to clarify that I have never done LSD. In fact, I have never done any drug. I have never entered into any chemically-induced altered state of consciousness for recreational purposes. This includes drunkenness, which, for some reason, gets a pass in everyone's book.

In 1962, a (possibly unethical) experiment was done on a congregation of churchgoers. Timothy Leary, a true wild child who was deemed by President Nixon as “the most dangerous man in America”, had the ingenious idea of giving LSD to a congregation at a Good Friday service. (Remember kids, the difference between science and messing around is writing down what happens.) This experiment came to be known as the Marsh Chapel Experiment.

The results were, to put it lightly, spectacular. Almost all of the people given LSD reported having a “profound religious experience”. The results were not temporal, either. The participants, 25 years after the fact, generally said it was one of the most profound spiritual experiences of their lives.

This experiment solidified LSD's membership in a category of drugs known as Entheogens. An entheogen is a drug that, for lack of better word, enhances a spiritual experience. Examples of entheogens include peyote, ayahuasca (DMT), and (probably) soma.

These drugs cause an altered state of consciousness known as ego dissolution, or ego death. If you are familiar with Freudian psychoanalytics, you may know that the “Ego” is the part of the psyche that restrains the “Id”, which is associated with instinct. Therefore, “Ego death” literally refers to a deconstruction of the Ego in service of experiencing the Id. It is a loss of the sense of self, which leads to transcendance of what Alan Watts calls “the skin-encapsulated ego”.

Meaningfully, Timothy Leary describes it as being “… complete transcendence − beyond words …”. So, to clarify, ego death is beyond words, gives a sense of enlightenment, and unlocks the id, leading to an extra-personal experience. This is why I draw the connection between ego death and the spiritual experience I was discussing above.

You might be wondering what LSD has to do with the Camp High. After all, the vast majority of Christians have never touched drugs in their lives. How could they experience a sensation that is induced by a drug they have never consumed? To answer that question I need to talk about the study of mysticism.

Mystical experiences, which bear several resemblances to ego death, are known be induced in a number of ways outside of drug usage, including chanting and meditation. I would argue that there are many more ways to induce these states of consciousness, and that research has been focused on pre-industrial societies.

The above picture is from the Passion conference. The Passion conference is an annual gathering of over 40,000 college students. There are so many of them that they need to hold it in a stadium. The production value is immense. There are tons of lazers, spotlights, giant screens, etc.

Passion is an intense emotional experience