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- A major study found psychedelic users were more likely to leave organized religion but keep their spirituality.
- Psilocybin use, even in experiences people call spiritual, rarely causes lasting changes in spirituality.
- People who used other substances, not just psychedelics, also left religious groups. This suggests a broader trend of not following group norms.
- The bio-psycho-social model says psychedelics make existing beliefs stronger, instead of creating new ones.
- Studies on psilocybin for depression show it helps symptoms without necessarily making people more religious or spiritual.
Psychedelics like psilocybin have long been linked to spiritual experiences. People have used them in old rituals and in modern therapy for things like past hurts or feeling down. Scientists are studying their possible health benefits, which brings up a question: Do psychedelics truly change a person’s religious or spiritual beliefs? A big study says no — or at least, not in the way you might think.
The Popular Belief: Psychedelics as Spiritual Gateways
People across time and cultures have connected psychedelics with experiences that feel bigger than daily life. From plant ceremonies in the Amazon to ancient Greek rites, humans have used substances to feel closer to the divine. Later, people like Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley made popular the idea that substances like LSD and psilocybin could give deep spiritual understanding, cause the self to disappear temporarily, or connect users to everything.
This connection between psychedelics and spirituality is still strong in how people talk about them today. Many people have said these experiences felt “more real than real.” They described them as holy times that changed how they saw life and death. In online groups, reports of trips, and films, people often talk about feeling connected to the universe, having deep emotional releases, and a sudden sense of the self fading away. These times often sound religious. This leads people to wonder: Can psychedelics change what people believe or create new spiritual ideas?
Because of this question, scientists decided to study the real, long-term effects of psychedelics on how religious and spiritual people are.
Study Overview: Psychedelics and Religious Disaffiliation
In a significant study in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality journal, researchers Aaron D. Cherniak and Pehr Granqvist looked into how using psychedelics—especially psilocybin and LSD—affects religion and spirituality over time.
They used three main groups of data:
- The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS): This study followed over 11,000 British people from when they were born.
- The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70): This study followed another group of over 11,000 people for many years.
- A U.S./UK two-month study with 9,732 adults. This study tracked recent drug use and how religious or spiritual people said they were.
Taken together, these large datasets gave a clear picture of how people’s beliefs change, both with and without using psychedelics.
Things that made this study reliable:
- It was planned ahead of time. This meant the study questions and methods were stated early to avoid picking only certain results.
- It used data collected over time. This showed how people changed.
- It included many different kinds of people. This made the results more useful for different groups.
The research is one of the best attempts yet to actually measure the link between psychedelics and religion.
Key Finding #1: Psychedelic Users More Likely to Disaffiliate from Religion
One clear result was that people who had used classic psychedelics—especially psilocybin or LSD—were much more likely to have moved away from organized religion. This was true even when considering how they were raised. People who grew up religious but used psychedelics often ended up saying they were not religious.
This was consistent across the groups of people born in Britain and in the U.S./UK adult study.
What’s interesting is that this wasn’t just about being less active in religion, like missing church. Many users changed the label they used for themselves. They might change from “Christian” or “Jewish” to terms like “agnostic,” “atheist,” or “spiritual but not religious.”
But, it's important to stress a main point: the study showed a connection, not that one thing caused the other. We can’t say for sure that taking psilocybin made these people leave religion. It could be that people who are open to trying psychedelics were already questioning traditional ways. Psychedelics might just confirm feelings they already had, rather than start a change.
Still, the data strongly suggests a link between being open to psychedelics and moving away from religion.
Key Finding #2: Spirituality Remained Stable Over Time
Even though people left religious groups, they didn’t report big changes in their overall spirituality. Even people who had recently used psychedelics, when checked two months later, showed very little change in how spiritual they said they were.
This might be surprising if you’ve heard intense stories about trips. Psychedelics often cause experiences that people call “mystical” or “divine.” But, these experiences rarely led to long-term spiritual change in the study.
People might feel moved, amazed, or newly aware during a trip. But these feelings didn’t seem to lead to lasting changes in how they saw themselves spiritually. This suggests that while psychedelics can create temporary feelings of the sacred, they don’t often build lasting spiritual identities.
It's important to note this difference. Feeling something special during a trip doesn't always mean a permanent shift in daily belief or how you see the world.
The Bio-Psycho-Social Model: Making What’s Already There Stronger
Lead author Aaron Cherniak saw the results using the idea of the bio-psycho-social model of drug effects. This idea says a substance’s effect depends a lot on putting together:
- Biology: your brain chemistry and body
- Psychology: your mental state, personality, what you expect
- Social context: your culture, how you grew up, and where you are
Basically, psychedelics may not create new ideas. Instead, they make ideas you already have feel stronger. They can make them feel more pressing, true, or deep.
If someone already doubts traditional religion, a trip might make those doubts feel stronger in ways that feel real to them. If someone is already leaning toward being spiritual, psychedelics might temporarily make those feelings bigger. But they rarely put completely new ways of thinking into someone’s head if it’s outside their current view.
This idea that psychedelics act like an “amplifier” is something many experienced users and guides have believed for a long time. They say these substances are like mirrors, not guidebooks. They show you what’s inside, but don’t tell you what to think.
Not Just Psychedelics: Broader Non-Conformity in Substance Users
Another interesting part of the study was that people who used substances other than psychedelics showed similar trends of leaving religion. People who used cannabis, amphetamines, and cocaine were also more likely than non-users to report dropping religious labels.
This suggests that ideas focusing only on psychedelics might be too narrow. Instead, a better explanation might be about not following general social rules.
People open to using illegal or uncommon substances might already question what society expects, including religion. Psychedelics might just be signs of a broader choice to differ or to build an identity outside the usual path.
These factors make it harder to say that spiritual or religious change comes only from the drug itself. It might be less about the chemical and more about the person’s way of thinking.
Temporary vs. Permanent: The Ephemeral Nature of Mystical Experiences
One of the deepest parts of psychedelic experiences is feeling like the “ego” disappears or like you are one with something divine. But while these moments can feel final or holy at the time, the study suggests they don't usually lead to lasting personal religious change.
What feels spiritual in the moment doesn’t necessarily result in a new belief system later.
This difference is key for therapists, spiritual seekers, and guides who work with psilocybin. While experiences called “mystical” are sometimes thought to predict if therapy will work well, they are not enough to create lasting changes in how someone identifies spiritually.
They might help someone feel more open emotionally, more kind, or more humble. But that does not mean they will adopt a new religious view.
Implications from the Psilocybin Depression Study
The same idea shows up in other important research. For example, the 2021 study comparing psilocybin to escitalopram (an antidepressant) for depression. This study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that psilocybin greatly reduced symptoms of depression, with fewer side effects than typical antidepressants.
But interestingly, these improvements in feelings and mental health did not necessarily come with spiritual awakenings.
Patients said they felt more connected to others, more hopeful, or more peaceful. But they did not say they felt more religious. This supports the idea that psilocybin’s help for mental health is not automatically spiritual, even if it can feel spiritual during the experience.
Psilocybin’s power in therapy may be more about giving new ways of looking at things and emotional breakthroughs than causing religious conversion.
Therapeutic vs. Recreational Intentions: Does It Matter?
An important question the study brings up is whether your purpose and the situation affect long-term spiritual or religious change.
In psychedelic research, the ideas of “set and setting” are very important:
- Set: Your mindset—what you plan, what you expect, how you feel
- Setting: Where you are—the physical place, the people around you
The safety and structure of therapy often lead to different results than using drugs for fun in a random place. For example, having a guide or therapist might give more chances to think about and use the experience later.
However, the study over time did not find stronger spiritual changes even among recent users, no matter how they used the drug. This doesn’t mean set and setting aren’t important. But it suggests that spiritual belief systems are quite strong, even during intense experiences.
More research will need to look into whether group rituals, traditional use, or focused work after the experience make spiritual change more likely.
For Mushroom Enthusiasts: Realistic Expectations
It’s becoming easier to get psilocybin legally around the world. Oregon has rules for psilocybin services. More cities like Oakland and Denver have made it less controlled. Growing psilocybin mushrooms at home is also becoming more common as a way to feel better and to look inward.
But this study gives a key reminder: psilocybin isn’t a fast way to gain faith.
Taking psychedelic mushrooms—even in a planned way—won’t automatically make you more spiritual, religious, or wise. Instead, they give you room to see things differently, to think about memories, to feel awe, or to release emotions.
People using them should approach with curiosity and a sense of humility. But don't just assume that change will happen, or that it will be spiritual.
Psychedelics, Spirituality, and Self-Discovery: An Open Process
Ultimately, how you experience psychedelics is very personal.
Some people might find a sense of the sacred again. Others might become more sure of their non-religious or atheist beliefs. There is no single path, no certain result.
What psychedelics do most reliably is help people be open—to new questions, to forgotten things, to awe, to change. That openness, more than becoming religious, might be their biggest contribution.
In this way, psychedelics suggest a different kind of spiritual path. It is one based on asking questions, not following fixed rules.
Scientific Responsibility and a Call for Nuance
This study sets a high standard for future research into psychedelics and spirituality. It’s not based on stories or guesses. It uses data over many years, careful study, and results that apply to different groups.
Still, the researchers point out some limits:
- Looking only for two months might miss changes that happen later.
- What people say about themselves can be affected by how they remember or what they want to say.
- Being religious or spiritual is complex and might not be fully shown by surveys.
Going forward, studies that look more closely could check how who someone is, their culture, their purpose for using drugs, and their personality work together with psychedelic use to shape spiritual understanding.
Conclusion: Insight Without Indoctrination
The main lesson is simple but important: psychedelics like psilocybin might change how you perceive things, but not necessarily what you believe.
Whether used for healing, personal sight, or new experiences, these moments don't tell you what values to hold. They invite you to think, not to follow rules. They might make someone less religious, but not more spiritual. Or it could be the other way around.
Understanding this difference matters. It matters for therapists, religious leaders, people making rules, and users themselves.
If you feel drawn to psilocybin mushrooms—whether for research, mental health, or seeing things differently—do so by thinking about it carefully and having realistic expectations. It might not give you new beliefs, but it could help you understand the ones you already have better.
Citations
- Cherniak, A. D., & Granqvist, P. (2024). How Does Psychedelic Use Relate to Aspects of Religiosity/Spirituality? Preregistered Report From a Birth Cohort Study and a Prospective Longitudinal Study. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000561
- Carhart-Harris, R. L., et al. (2021). Trial of psilocybin versus escitalopram for depression. The New England Journal of Medicine, 384(15), 1402–1411. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994
