Michael & Shocking Psychedelic Stories: "The Light Beings Held Me Down" | Joshua Zatkoff
A former Psychedelic user and drug addict shares his shocking experiences seeing beyond the veil. Joshua Zatkoff addresses the many questions circulating around DMT, magic mushrooms, and other popularized drugs and shares how his life was changed forever after he found Jesus.
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When I started getting into DMT, where I was having encounters with light beings.
What did you think the light beings were?
With acid and mushrooms, you don't typically, at least I never had visuals.
With the DMT, this was like full on, like you're seeing a whole world just crack open in front of you.
What would they tell you?
These three beings come in my room, and another one came in and was dragging my body.
And they told me, if you don't stop doing heroin, this is you.
As society continues to get crazier and crazier, one theory I have to explain some of the craziness is that everybody is on drugs.
Everybody is on prescription drugs, psychiatric drugs, the legalization of marijuana, and specifically hallucinogenic drugs.
Hallucinogenic drug use has increased dramatically in recent years.
LSD use is up something like 400% over the last 20 or so years.
Psychedelics more broadly up significantly.
And for All of my sins and degeneracy that I've engaged in my whole life, drugs has never really been one of them.
So I decided to bring on an expert on drug use and how to get off of drug use.
That would be Josh Zatkoff.
Josh.
How you doing?
Thank you for coming on the show.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Before we started, I said, Josh, how would you like me to introduce you?
And you said, I don't know, Josh.
You now have really turned your life around.
You are an evangelist.
But you've had a rough past.
Homelessness, jail time, and drugs.
Correct.
So the reason I want to find out about all this is not so that I can scold people and say, just say no, like Nancy Reagan.
I guess I do kind of want to do that.
But I want to know more about it.
I want to know why people are so interested in drugs, and specifically in these psychedelic drugs.
Yeah.
I mean, it's definitely an interesting topic.
And I think it's because People are all in a search for something.
We're all searching for the more to life.
I think for me, personally, it started off with Curiosity.
For me, I remember being 11, 12 and seeing the comedy movies and they're smoking weed in there and stuff like that.
You see that and you're like, I want to try that.
It's being glorified.
The cool people are doing it.
And so for me it started out just like that.
And then once I was a curious child, so once I had encountered somebody that had access to that, it was natural for me to want to try it.
And so when I did, It gave me a new taste of reality, a different reality.
It felt like it was the missing piece to my life.
You know what I'm saying?
Because when I was younger, I started feeling that desolation in my mind or that weight of oppression kind of coming on me.
And I didn't even know what it was.
You know what I mean?
I started to feel depressed.
You started to feel depressed after you started using drugs or before you started using drugs?
No, before.
But I didn't have the language for it.
I didn't know that I was depressed.
Thought I was feeling, you know, sad or something.
But it seemed to take, like, a darker turn as far as, like, I don't feel like all my other friends are dealing with this, you know?
That's kind of how it started to feel.
So it didn't just feel like, you know, 13-year-olds are angsty.
You're saying, are you saying now, in hindsight even, what I was dealing with was, in fact, heavier?
Or just that it felt heavier?
Looking back, I know it was heavier.
As a young kid, even 7, 8, I would scratch my face to a bled.
I had anger issues.
I had all these self-harm.
That stuff was there as a little 7, 8 year old.
My mom has little writings or whatever, diaries she kept for me.
One of her entries was saying how she came home from the babysitters and I was chasing with a butcher knife at 7, 8 years old.
And I think she's like, you were just being silly.
But that stuff, looking back, it was there.
It was blatantly in front of everybody's face.
But how do you deal with that?
I definitely didn't know it wasn't normal, though.
Because I'm not living with other kids, you know what I mean?
And it's not like I had a bad childhood.
I had great parents, great family, all that.
Were your parents married?
Yeah, yeah.
And so, what do you attribute that to?
Was it mental illness?
Was it a spiritual condition?
Was it an accident?
No, it was definitely mental illness, but I believe mental illness, most of it, a lot of it is spiritual.
That's my take on it.
I think a lot of it's spiritual.
And so, when I look, because it's always producing something negative.
For the most part, people that deal with mental illnesses, whatever variety of it, it always You know, produces something negative.
It's never something, you know, good or, you know, like, that does something good for the world.
It causes chaos and stuff.
And so, when I smoked weed for the first time, It was like everything fit together and was like, oh, this is what I needed.
And so it was just instant, like right off the bat, it was like, oh, this is what I want to do with my life.
And I tried to.
That was my first, it was a romance.
It was like love at first sight or something.
And so I became obsessed with marijuana because it made me feel like I was a better version of myself.
Why marijuana instead of booze?
Because I like tobacco.
And I like alcohol.
Thankfully, for all my problems, that has not been one.
I've never really felt addicted to those kinds of things.
But I like them.
I like a cigar and I like a drink, whereas I don't really like the old devil's lettuce, which I've smoked on occasion.
That never really grabbed me, but it did grab you.
No, I think it might just be a personal preference.
I didn't like alcohol because I didn't like how it tasted.
I think the first time I drank I was maybe 13 and I remember I had a group of friends.
It tasted nasty, and then I was like, man, you know, smoking, it's quick.
It's like, you know, within a couple seconds.
But drinking, I'm like, I have to sit here and drink all this stuff to feel, you know, because I just wanted to feel drunk.
Yeah.
And so I didn't like it because I never liked feeling sloppy and so obvious.
Weed made me feel like it was a more nonchalant kind of thing.
So I think that's why it was just a personal preference.
So, so far we've covered all the drugs that I have any familiarity with.
When I was a kid, I told you, drugs didn't really attract me at all.
With one exception, I was curious about LSD, and mushrooms, and people now today are always talking about ayahuasca, and all these things.
The psychedelics interested me.
And I never did them.
I kind of had a little bit of a fear of them, because I was told, when you do it, your brain is never the same.
It kind of rewires you.
And I thought, well, I don't know.
I kind of rely on my brain.
So I don't know that I want to rewire it.
Curious about it.
I said, what could I see if I took these drugs?
So when did you graduate to those kinds of drugs?
So when I got into high school, about 14, I saw the movie The Doors, Jim Morrison with Val Kilmer.
And man, I never felt like I related to somebody so much.
Like when I was watching him, I felt like I was watching the person I wanted to be or something in that movie.
So much of me connected with it.
And so he was doing peyote and acid and stuff in the movie.
And so at some point in high school, I had a friend have acid.
And I did it, and it wasn't like, I didn't take enough, I don't think.
Nothing really happened, but I felt kind of just different, but nothing really happened.
And then a few months later, or yeah, like probably the next year, I think, it was like 10th, my sophomore year of high school, I had mushrooms.
And so the mushrooms, I was sitting in somebody's car, and It was like weed all over again.
It was just a whole new reality.
And I spent like three hours, back in the day, it was like the CD players had the little pictures on them, and you could pop them in and out.
And for three hours, I was just sitting there staring at that.
It just got me entrenched into this new reality.
And I'm like, look up, I'm with my friend.
And it's like, dude, we've been doing this for four hours, having the time of our life.
It was just so intense.
I had this experience of just feeling like there was, like the universe was alive.
Like I felt connected to the things that were around me.
I felt like I was connected to life in a different way.
And I started thinking different.
I got more, I guess, deep in my thought.
I started just kind of becoming more philosophical in my approach to just how I was viewing things and my perspective.
And so it was like, how is it different in that I go through my daily life.
I feel that the world is teeming with life.
I feel connected.
All the things you're describing, I feel that in my ordinary day-to-day life.
You describe the sense of going deeper, thinking more philosophically.
I don't have experience of the mushrooms, but I read a book and I think more philosophically, or I look at a work of art.
So what was different about all of that on the mushrooms?
I don't know if I could say, it was more of it slowed everything down and made me more, it was like, oh, look at this water.
And you notice every little bubble.
It just made you so appreciative of the moment.
Pulled me into the moment in such a way where I appreciated things I never appreciated before.
And then there was this feeling of just joy.
I couldn't stop laughing.
I was laughing the whole time and I had the time of my life.
And so it just, at that point, I was hooked.
It was like, I can't wait to ever do this again.
And then what happened was I actually went to a rehab not like a month after that.
I went away for a year in a rehab.
And in that rehab, I got into Buddhism.
And so when I started to read about Buddhism and Taoism and stuff, and started to meditate, I started to notice that the ideology behind it was lining up with the ideology I was kind of having on the mushrooms.
So it was like there was this dynamic between them that started to kind of cross.
Many such cases, by the way.
My friends who have gotten into shrooms and acid and stuff, they have gone down that sort of Buddhist, Taoist, Eastern mystical route.
So you end up in the rehab.
Was it a family member or something sent you there?
Yeah, my parents.
Because my mom, on her side of the family, there was a lot of addiction.
My dad's side of the family had alcoholism.
So they were just being good parents.
They see their kid falling down that hole, so they were just trying to help.
But the thing is, I was 15.
And when you're 15, you think you know everything, you don't want help.
In my mind, I'm just smoking weed.
You know, I tried an ecstasy pill or something, a couple of things.
But in my mind, everyone else I was with was doing the same stuff.
So I didn't think it was, you know, absurd or anything.
And so when I went to the rehab, I had gotten into Buddhism.
And while I was there, I think because I didn't have a family and because I didn't have... I'm just with a bunch of kids from all over the country that I don't know.
The place got shut down for child abuse.
So it's like, I'm with, you know, wacko people leading it.
And I think I felt like I only had myself.
It was like the first time in my life, it was like, you're on your own kind of thing.
You know, that's how it felt, was like, all you have is yourself to rely on.
And so Buddhism kind of, it taught me, I guess, how to kind of be strong within myself, and it taught me the power of what was within me.
You know what I mean?
And so I just took to it, and I got addicted to it.
You know, because I was on ADHD medicine at the time.
And so that, you know, gives you hyper focus and all that.
And so I just, there was nothing else to do.
I'm stuck in this place for a year.
And so that's all I did.
I started meditating and reading books.
And you found that there was a commonality in the perspective on the world.
Did you find there was a common effect?
Did you get the same sort of high by meditating in this Buddhist manner?
I wouldn't say to that extreme or to that extent.
But I started meditating and I started having moments where I would get something that would remind me of it.
And I'll give you an example, like there would be moments where I would feel like I would start kind of vibrating or something.
I would just feel like this divine connection that reminded me of when I was on The Mushroom.
So it was like these moments of it, but the difference was like I felt like I had to work for it.
So with The Mushroom, it was like you take this and you stay there, you rest there.
But with Buddhism, it was like you're doing this stuff, I'm meditating, you know, to get to that place and then try to stay there.
So what you're describing… sounds generally pleasant.
I don't know that it sounds like an ultimate triumph or joy or victory, but at least it sounds kind of pleasant.
You're just vibing, you know, feeling with the universe, man.
And so, how's it go wrong?
Oh man, well, so that's kind of, I mean, that's a long story.
We're talking like a decade of journey to find that out.
So, after the rehab, when I came home, I got in my first legal trouble.
So when I got in my first legal trouble, I was 16.
I got put on probation.
I wouldn't stop smoking weed.
I'm actually friends with my probation officer to this day on social media and stuff.
And so she was really cool towards me, but I kept smoking weed.
And I told her, I said, I'm not going to stop.
I said, if you're going to lock me up, you're going to lock me up.
And so I was going in and out of juvie.
I would fail my urine test, and then I'd go for like 30 days, two weeks, whatever.
And then eventually I said, you know what, I've got to find something else.
And so one day I was on house arrest with my friend and he had a painkiller.
And he asked me if I wanted to try it with him.
Me and him had never done it together before, so I did the painkiller.
And it was just, it was like the same thing again.
It was like this feeling I never had, the best feeling I ever had in my life.
Me and him looked at each other and we're like, do you feel that?
And so that began basically within six months I was shooting up heroin.
So at that point, Psychedelics were always there as a here and there thing.
They were something I just enjoyed.
But then at one point, I guess probably maybe 10 years into it, I'm trying to do the math in my head of time frames, around 19, 20, psychedelics were They were something that I did when I was, I needed heroin to function basically, right?
So like the heroin was, that was my addiction.
But the psychedelics at that point, they started off in high school, it was like a party thing.
It was like you go to the party, you have fun, you laugh, but I knew the spiritual element was there.
And so once I got to the place of liking Buddhism and stuff like that, I started taking them to kind of jump into the spiritual aspect of it.
So I would take them and so I had nothing but good experiences.
You know, like I had nothing but positive things happening as far as I would have this like new profound wisdom would hit me.
I'd have this understanding of being connected, being one, all of us loving each other.
It was like that's the secret to life, love each other, you know.
Is there any?
Was there any wisdom, perhaps that is the wisdom, but is there anything you remember now looking back on it?
Ah, yes, here was a bit of wisdom that I gleaned on one of these trips that I wouldn't have known otherwise.
Is there anything you can point to and say, ah, that piece of wisdom?
Or no, was it just kind of a feeling of wisdom?
No, I think it was just more of just a different mindset.
It was just a different level of consciousness that when I was in that place, everything made sense.
The funny thing about hallucinogens is like, A lot of the stuff you forget.
It's like, you're here, and then it leaves you.
And that's why people keep, oh, I need to go do another retreat.
Because it's like, I know it was great, and I know I learned a lot.
I just don't remember anything I learned.
Yeah, and you take some of it with you.
You'll take one or two things, and then the rest is forgotten.
So that's what it was.
It was like...
Like, an example is like, I always would walk away with this feeling of like, I need to be a better person.
Like, it would crush my ego and crush my pride in the moments you'd get, you know what I mean?
And I'd be like, man, I'm really a bad son.
You know what I mean?
Like, I'm a bad brother.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I would have these real, like, I guess, reflective moments.
And so, because of that, I'm thinking, this must be a good thing.
Because it's bringing, I guess, sobriety to my thinking, in a way.
You know what I mean?
It's making me see things different.
Whereas, other drugs, They feed that selfishness.
That heroin, you don't care about anybody.
But on psychedelics, I'd be like, oh, I need to be more mindful of other people.
Rob, I've been around people who have been on coke, and they're the most annoying people on planet Earth.
They never shut up.
They're talking about the most boring things ever.
For some reason, they always are trying to get you to do coke.
I've been offered cocaine so many times in my life, and I've never done it.
It's not something that's interested me.
But I thought, isn't this expensive?
Why are you trying to peddle your expensive drug on me?
Why are you talking about your work assignment from last Thursday?
Nobody cares.
It's just like babbling.
Anyway, anyway, I could see that distinction between a drug that kind of pulls you out of yourself, much as Buddhism does.
Buddhism is essentially a denial of the self, and a drug that pulls you really into yourself.
But so what you're describing, other than your life completely falling apart while you're doing it, other than that little detail, it sounds like the hallucinogens are fine.
Yeah, it seemed that way, and so I thought they were the answer.
So my whole life goal was, I just need to trip.
Like, I wanted a permatrip.
That was my goal.
You hear these horror stories.
There's this story that goes around, everyone says, I know this guy who thought he was a cup of orange juice.
Yeah, right, right.
Like, everyone's heard this story, and somehow it's like their friend that they heard it from.
He thinks he's a banana, and he peels himself off.
Yeah, and honestly, at the time, I was jealous of that.
Not that outcome, but the outcome of, like, I could stay in this place.
Because, again, I liked who I was in that state.
And so it was always like, I just need to go trip one more time, collect the data, and then remember it and stay there.
And so the other thing was, like, So there was positive things when I started getting into DMT where I was having encounters with light beings.
You know what I mean?
They're talking to me.
They're telling me, you need to stop doing heroin or you're going to die.
They're guiding me in a positive way.
But at the same time, I'm getting more into the occult.
I'm playing Ouija boards thinking it's a game.
I'm egging on the Ouija board move and I'm telling it.
Show yourself.
You know, I'm egging it on, I'm thinking it's all a joke.
I think all this stuff is a joke. - So you're playing with the Ouija board.
The Ouija board, the idea is it's not your hands moving the thing around, but it's demons, basically.
Right.
Did it work?
So, it's funny because my first encounter with the Ouija board was my mom used to have them as a prop for Halloween.
No one played with it.
It was just when Halloween parties and she'd just have the Ouija board there, you know, just be a prop, right?
And I think one of the first times I remember And it wasn't like I did this like hundreds of times.
It was maybe a handful of times, 70 times.
So the first time it worked was I was at a friend's house.
It was I think like 8th grade summer or something, 9th grade, 8th grade summer.
And there was a group of us at this girl's house.
And so it was a group, like maybe five or six was playing it.
And it started to move.
Now, you know, everyone's first reaction is, is it you?
Is it you?
Is it you?
Everyone's, no, no.
I swear, no.
I promise, no.
Everyone's denying.
I know it's not me.
The thing starts to move.
People start getting freaked out.
And me, again, I'm challenging this stuff.
I think it's a joke.
Yeah.
Because even though I think, like, oh, it really is moving on its own at this point, now, but I'm, like, asking it stupid questions, you know?
Like, oh, if you're real, show your face, you know, and stuff like that.
And so it starts to move, and people will start getting freaked out.
So it was, like, me, and I think it was, like, two or three other girls and another guy.
One of them said, you have to ask it if you can leave.
Or leave the door open.
You have to ask if you're allowed to leave.
So they said, can I leave?
And it goes, yes.
Can I leave?
Yes.
And so next thing I know, it's just me and this one girl.
And she says, can I leave?
And it says, no.
So she goes to try, and she's like, can I leave now?
And he goes, no, no.
And she just freaked out and she just ran off.
And I was sitting there and just laughing.
So it wasn't you moving it.
And so you could say, well, maybe it's this girl just wants to spend more time with you.
So I'm going to move it to say no.
But she gets very freaked out and then she leaves.
No, it was genuine fear.
She was like, oh.
She just freaked out and she left.
So that was the first time I saw something come from me.
And then years later I played it.
Back when I was getting really into the DMT, I had one and I was with one of my friends.
And this guy was a very stoic kind of guy.
He wasn't the type of guy to get scared easily.
Me and him used to do all types of crazy stuff together.
He wasn't the type of guy to… For one, to play into it, and two, to get scared about stuff like this.
It's just me and him, you know?
And we start playing, and like I said, I lived on that battlefield, and so we start asking that thing that starts moving.
I didn't even need to ask.
I knew it wasn't him.
He knew it wasn't me.
It starts moving.
So we're asking him multiple questions.
And I started asking him, like, well, when am I going to die?
And it gives me a number.
And it says from an overdose.
It says 37 from an overdose.
And then he asked it.
And it gave him a number.
And it gave him, I think, a heart failure or something, a heart attack or something.
To this day, that friend is scared.
He called me literally like last year.
He said, like he freaked out.
I mean, and this is 2012, 2013.
I mean, to this day, he's still afraid of that.
He still thinks that's going to happen.
Yeah, of course.
How old are you?
I'm 30.
Are you scared?
No.
No, because I think the blood broke the curse.
But I think that it would have happened.
I think that that was the intention.
I think that was the plan for my life, maybe.
But he still thinks that.
He called me actually like a year ago or something.
He said, dude, I only have a year left.
He thinks it's going to happen.
Right, because demons can't read your mind.
Demons are not God.
Demons are not omniscient or anything like that.
But they are pretty good observers of behavior.
And so, based on the behavior that you were exhibiting for a long time, it may have been a perfectly reasonable inference to say, oh yeah, you'll die at 37 from a drug overdose.
Yeah, 100%.
So why are you doing, because people tell me this, they say, oh yeah, I play with Ouija boards and crystals and weird astrology stuff, but it was all just kind of silly games.
And I think, when I want to play a silly game, I play Monopoly.
What is it about, What drew you to the Ouija board and all the occult stuff?
I think just us as humans, we're drawn to the taboo, you know?
I think it's part of our nature.
We like that mystery, that's why people like horror movies and stuff, and it's like... And your inhibitions are already a little bit weakened, because you're doing all this other great stuff.
Yeah, yeah, I was already, I liked that, like, kind of that, I liked the demonic type of stuff.
I was drawn to the dark stuff, not, you know, not in the sense of, hey, you know, devil with pitchfork and horns.
But the stuff that made people uncomfortable.
I wanted to go into the water that everyone else was like, I don't know, that's a little crazy.
The secret.
Yeah, yeah.
And so it was just something I did with friends.
I'd play the Ouija board.
I started doing psychics.
I went into all that because Buddhism is already kind of branched.
I would say those are branches of that.
That whole world kind of comes together.
It's the same thinking.
And so I started getting more into the cult.
And so what was crazy is when I was about 20, 2012, I was doing a lot of psychedelics.
I was doing a lot of heroin.
I was in probably the worst place I had ever, one of the darkest places in my life.
And so I had this moment of like, I'm having encounters with light beings.
Why am I not happy?
Why am I still stuck?
I can't stop doing heroin.
I want to kill myself, and I'm thinking I'm enlightened.
I would have a trip, and for a week, I'd be the most enlightened.
I'd think I was Gandhi.
For the next week, I'm Gandhi, everybody.
And then a week later, I want to kill myself.
And so I'm starting to connect these dots.
This doesn't make sense.
Why am I having these great experiences?
But I can't ever bring back the fruit, or what I thought was fruit, I can't ever bring it back to my life.
And I can't find the power to overcome any of this, my obstacles.
What did you think the light beings were?
Did you think it was a figment of your imagination, you know, just a chemical product of the drugs?
Or did you think they were angels or something?
So, with acid and mushrooms, You don't typically, at least I never had visuals, where like, oh, I'm seeing this thing just pop up.
It's more like the walls will melt.
Everything's a lot more vibrant.
You know, you could see something and it starts to look like something else.
I had a time where my dog turned green and his tongue was longer.
Stuff like that, right?
But you know, like, oh, this is reality.
Still a dog.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like I knew it was reality.
With the DMT, This was like full on, you're seeing a whole world just crack open in front of you.
It's like going to Mars or something, right?
Like right now this room just turns into another realm, right?
So I knew I was hallucinating, but I also knew 100% this stuff is real.
Whatever is in my room right now, these things are real and they would be light beings.
So they're a human shape.
But they were colors.
One was purple, one was orange, one was red.
It's like a flaming light, but in a human shape, body, right?
So it's like a silhouette.
And then the thing about them is that they would always speak peace.
Like, we're here to help you.
Calm down, relax.
We have your back.
And the thing that was interesting, and I didn't pick it up at the time, but looking back, It literally was like, you know when you're swimming in the ocean and you feel like that there's something maybe under you?
It's like you're enjoying the waves, it's fun, but you're kind of like, oh, there might be a shark.
That's how it felt.
It's like, I kind of don't trust you guys, but I don't have a reason not to.
You look pretty.
You're giving me good information.
You're clothed as an angel of light, you might say.
Yeah, yeah.
And so that's kind of where it was at.
But it just never... And they gave you advice in the sense that calm down, it's okay.
What would they tell you?
So the one DMT experience I had, I had these three beings come in my room.
I freaked out.
I started to try to get up off the bed.
But there was a bigger one.
So if I was laying down, it was like his legs were 10 feet tall.
So the other ones I see in front of me dancing around and swirling.
This one was 10 feet tall legs.
I couldn't even see the top of the being.
But his hands started going over me.
And if you've seen Reiki, they go like this.
He was doing Reiki hand movements over me.
And he was telling me telepathically, Relax, we're here to help you, right?
And then a few minutes later, my door opened up by itself and another one came in and was dragging my body.
So I'm in my body, I'm watching this.
My body gets dragged in the room and they told me, if you don't stop doing heroin, this is you.
Because I used to get high in my bathroom.
And so I knew they were saying, you're going to overdose in this bathroom if you don't stop.
And so that's what I mean.
They would tell me, you need to be a better person.
So what is that?
It seems to me there's four options.
It could be you're subconscious.
You knew, even as you're doing a bunch of dope, you know that this is bad for you and it's going to kill you.
So it's your subconscious telling you that, like in a dream, say.
Or they're demons.
They're clothed as angels of light, as it says in the Bible.
Or they're angels.
Or they're just some weird chemical hallucination, totally random, totally unaccounted for, totally meaningless.
Which to me seems like the most ridiculous possibility of all.
So, which of the three is it?
So I think the interesting thing is that if you talk to anybody that did psychedelics, I think everybody would agree they're all real.
It's not just your imagination, your subconscious.
I think there's times people think like your subconscious can create stuff that isn't really there.
But those experiences are 100%.
It's another dimension.
The veil is removed.
Yeah.
And I think that's what gets manipulated because of our ignorance.
And I'll give you an example.
The first time I did the mushrooms, I started to climb up a radio tower.
And then I got about 20 feet up, and I thought, oh, what am I doing?
I shouldn't be climbing a tower right now.
I started to climb down.
That inflicted a thought of fear where I started, for some reason, because I was in the woods, I started thinking about the Headless Horseman.
And I'm like, oh, the Headless Horseman's gonna get me.
I started to hear horses come.
So that was an example of me thinking something.
But I knew, oh, I'm just tripping.
You know, like, oh, this isn't real right now.
I went back in the car and I was fine.
Because you hear that expression a lot.
You're like, oh, man, that guy's tripping over there.
Obviously, where it comes from is you literally were tripping and you were imagining something that wasn't there.
Yeah, and I was imagining it, and I knew I was.
But this was different than what was going on in your room.
Way different, yeah.
But my question is, it sounds like they're demons, but they're saying, hey, don't kill yourself, get off the heroin, which seems like good advice, so then it seems like they're angels.
Right, right.
So what is it?
That's the deception in it.
And so I think Romans 6 talks about, it says you're either a slave to sin or to righteousness.
It says look at the fruit of what's coming from this.
And so I think that a lot of times we have to look like what is the fruit that is coming from this?
Like the fruit that was coming from this was not good in any sense for me.
Even when they say get off the heroin, that's not good.
Well I guess because it didn't work.
Because it didn't, there was no power there.
So it's kind of like, and I always use this illustration of If I'm trying to kidnap somebody, I'm not going to say, hey, I'm here to kill you, kid.
Come in the car.
It's like, here's some candy.
Hey, I want to get you down there.
Here's $100.
If you look at the state of Satan being the god of this world in a fallen state, fallen angels having secret knowledge, and you know what I mean?
Principalities and powers.
Yeah, and all this stuff.
They're not dumb, and so they can give you stuff that looks good.
Right.
I guess our imagination is just limited.
We think, oh, those stupid little devils.
We're so much smarter than them.
No, they're pure intelligence.
They're probably more intelligent than we are in many ways.
So you're in the room, you're surrounded by Demons, basically.
And you're saying they're real.
You're aware of the, it's not just something you're imagining.
And you see yourself, you see this vision of yourself dying from heroin.
And okay, then you wake up from the trip.
So, okay, so I wouldn't, but this is before I haven't kind of got all that.
This is when I'm around 20 years old, I think, around 2012.
When this happened.
I see this and I think that they are angels at the time.
They were light.
They seemed loving.
They seemed to have my interest at heart.
So I did think they were angels at the time.
And afterwards, I was rocked.
I mean, that will really mess up your view of life for a while.
I didn't even know how to look at life the same anymore after that.
But then it's like, oh, I gotta do it again.
I gotta meet them again.
Whatever it takes, right?
Give me some more poison so I can meet those angels again.
Yeah.
But here's what happened.
A week or two after that, I'm at my house.
I'm sitting there.
I'm depressed because I was going through a breakup, and I'm not going to get into the whole story, but long story short, I'm sitting there one night.
My best friend had died the year before in a car accident on his way to meet me, so I felt bad about that.
I was dealing with guilt about that.
My life is falling apart in front of my face.
I just had a baby that's probably a year and a half old at the time.
And it was like everything was so hopeless and I'm sitting here spinning my wheels trying to connect to these spirit realm and go to the psychic, getting Reiki done, doing all this stuff that I could think of, everything I could think of.
And I remember one night I just sat there and I had kind of like surpassed, you know what I mean, depression or anger or any emotion.
I don't know if it was apathy or what.
So you were just despairing at that point.
You weren't even angry.
You just said, there's no hope.
It was just, yeah, that Pink Floyd song, Comfortably Numb.
It's just nothing.
And so I basically said, yeah, I think I'm done.
I was sitting on my back porch.
I was drinking.
And I said, I'm done.
I said, yeah, I'm not doing this anymore.
I walked in my house, and I got a microphone cord, and then I walked back outside, and I had, I lived on a battlefield.
Oh, you mean, I'm done, like, I'm done?
Yeah, I was dead serious, like, I'm just done.
I don't want to be here anymore.
Because you have to think that this, I mean, for years, this was always in the background, but you don't ever think you'll actually do it.
It's kind of like, I want to, but I wouldn't actually go through with that.
You know what I mean?
I was cutting myself.
I hated life.
I hated myself.
And I didn't even know why.
I just felt like I was just chained to something that I didn't want to be a part of.
And it's like you're sitting in the passenger seat of your car and someone else is driving.
That's how it felt for the previous few years or whatever.
And so I said, I'm done.
And so I lived on a battlefield, like an actual Civil War battlefield, right?
And so that added a whole other element to this spooky stuff going on.
Well, nature is but art unknown to thee.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so there's the fences.
It's like Civil War.
They're tied up.
So where I lived, it was like a cliff.
It was my house.
And it was a cliff.
And then there was a little small stream.
And then it was like a little creek that broke off, and it was like a 20-foot-something drop, like 20, 22 feet drop, a cliff, and then like two feet of water.
And so I tied it to the silver water posts, and I tied it around my neck, and I walked to the end, and I said, I'm done.
And I just stepped off.
And the second that I felt the cord, it tightened, it pulled, and as soon as it caught me, I was like, oh no, what'd you do?
This was a mistake.
What are you thinking?
But it was too late.
I knew it.
I really did it.
And so next thing I know, it feels like in a dream state.
You know when you're in a dream and you're aware, like a lucid dream?
It felt like that, but in the dream, I had no memory of what I did.
So in the dream, I'm just wondering, why can't I breathe?
Why am I cold?
Why do I feel stuck?
I had no idea what was going on.
And so in the dream, in that state, I see this little light out of the corner of my eye start coming towards me.
It wasn't a big light.
It was just like a little light that grabbed your attention from this black void.
It started coming closer to me.
And then next thing I know, I felt something loose in my neck.
Still not knowing what it was.
Just, oh, I can breathe again in this dream.
And I grabbed and I got up.
And next thing I know, I'm popping my head up out the water.
And it all hits me.
What just happened?
So I'm sitting there like, I mean I'm crawling up this hill, I'm soaking wet, it's the middle of December, the middle of winter time.
I'm freezing cold, I'm shivering, I'm crying because I realized what I just did.
You know what I mean?
I go in my house, I have bruises all over my neck, my neck's all purple.
And I mean, I was a mess.
But the thing that happened that night is that I knew that there was something out there after that.
Like, something saved me.
And the craziest part was that I said, oh, it came untied from the fence.
Yeah, couldn't it just be the cord snapped or something?
It snapped, right?
That's what I'm thinking.
I go back out there, it's still tied to the fence.
So it was a microphone cord.
It stretched maybe double the length, I guess, because of the, you know, what it was.
It stretched.
Whatever it was, I knew something saved me.
So it didn't snap.
It didn't unfurl.
No.
So it just stretched and was attached to both ends.
But even then, I was unconscious.
I couldn't untie it.
Had it snapped where it was tied around your neck?
No, it was just loosed.
I'm unconscious just knowing that I couldn't breathe.
I didn't know there was something on my neck.
I was unconscious.
I went out.
I saw a light coming towards me and when it got maybe like 10 feet away from me, I just felt it loose.
And then I popped up.
And so then it hit me at that moment, I'm here for a reason.
Something cares about me and something is aware of me.
And I have no idea what or why.
But now I've got to figure out what it is.
And I wish I could say, like, oh, it's God, and everything changed at that moment.
It didn't.
It got way darker.
It got way worse.
Because there was no language.
There was no understanding of what it was.
It was just, I'll never do that again.
That was about all that I had at that time.
It was, I'll never do that again, but I'll do all the other stuff I've been doing.
Yeah, basically, but not wanting to.
And that's the worst thing about drugs.
It's like, it starts out fun.
And then you're a slave to it, and you can't stop.
And it's the most miserable existence because everyone's telling you, just stop, look at what it's doing here.
And you can't.
Well, you make this great point, which you're not the first to say it, which is that you're either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
And the way that people talk about freedom and liberty today, even on the right, certainly on the left, but even on the right, is really shallow and incoherent because they'll say is freedom is just being able to do as much heroin as you want.
That's freedom, baby.
If you want to do heroin, you have the right to go do whatever you want.
And as you have just attested, no.
You become a slave to it, and you become a slave to it very, very quickly.
That's not an expression of freedom.
That robs you of your freedom.
You're going to be a slave to sin or righteousness.
You're going to be a slave to vice or virtue.
So the question is, then what is freedom?
Freedom is obviously when you accept the constraints of virtue and goodness.
And Christ says, you know, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Follow me, do what I say, but don't worry.
My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
And the yoke and the burden of heroin, and all the light demons, that's not light.
That's not light at all.
But you keep going into it.
Because you say, okay, I'm not gonna kill myself anymore, but I'm still addicted to drugs, I still have been practicing, I've been cultivating these habits for 20 years or whatever, 15 years, and so you're not just gonna switch that off overnight, or it would be very difficult to do that.
So then what happens?
So, basically I go down this road for, you know, years, basically, and I'll go to basically the next couple years, I'm getting worse in my heroin addiction, it's becoming, you know, It started out the first few years, it was kind of like, the drugs were always there, I had the jobs that would somewhat support it.
So it was like, comfortable.
Then it got real uncomfortable.
Then it got miserable.
You know, where I'm always sick, I'm always, my whole day is like, chasing that.
And so when I was 23, 2014, I was going to school for massage therapy.
I don't know how that was a miracle in itself.
I don't know how I graduated the school, but I get through massage therapy school somehow.
And three days before I get my graduation certificate.
I already had graduated, but I'm waiting for the certificate or whatever.
I basically get hit with a distribution of heroin.
There was some girl that I was, you know, kind of friends with.
I had middleman-ed something to her.
She overdosed.
I called the police, or the ambulance, to resuscitate her.
And, you know, she ends up surviving, but she tells on me, so I get charged with a distribution of heroin.
At that point, I had done a little two weeks, 30 days in jail.
Well, this was a big, serious offense, right?
They're trying to tell me she's dead and all this stuff, telling me I'm looking at a murder charge, all this crazy stuff.
I knew they were just saying that, but...
Anyways, I end up getting the distribution.
So, 2015, I get sentenced to 18 months in jail.
And so, in that point, life smacked me in the mouth and really sat me down, because I have a kid at this point.
There was no more running.
And so, at that point, I got sat down and I was like, man, I need to change my life.
It was the first time in my life that I really wanted to change.
Or not that I really wanted to change, that I was really serious about change.
Like, alright, I'll really do what I need to do.
And so in the jail, I had ran into actually an old friend, and he had been there for like five years at that point, and he was talking about Jesus to me.
And I'm looking at him, I'm like, something's different about him.
Because I knew him from the streets, you know?
I'm like, something is different about the guy.
I'm not gonna lie.
Sort of that unspeakable joy that dwells within him, you know?
Unfathomable, yeah.
Yeah.
But he's talking to me about Jesus.
I'm mad at him.
I get mad at him.
I snapped on him one night.
I said, dude, stop talking to me about this Jesus.
I said, I don't want to hear it anymore.
And then I left to another jail.
For some reason, this was another one of those moments in life where I have no idea why.
I don't even know what happened.
Just at some point, I started to think Jesus was my God.
I didn't even really believe in him.
I just was like, you know what?
I tried all the other gods.
Maybe Jesus will be my God.
Heroin didn't work.
The Buddha thing didn't work.
You know what I love about that?
Everybody expects these kinds of stories that would be in a Hallmark movie or something.
And this is the climax of act two.
But the way you're telling it, it's like, yeah, and then I just realized, yeah, no, he's God.
I just figured out, yeah, that was it.
It's so obvious, you know?
Yeah, but it was weird because there was nothing.
I don't even think I believed that.
I think it was like, I'll try this one next.
I didn't believe that he was God.
So it was an experiment?
Yeah, it was an experiment.
I just would start talking about Jesus and mention the Bible, but I didn't seek him or anything.
And it was crazy, because when I got out, I was making music, and I was listening to some of my old music, and I would shout out Jesus.
I had no relationship with him whatsoever.
I did not know him at all, but I would be like, yeah, Jesus, whatever, right?
And then the next line, talk about something crazy, probably, right?
So what happened though is after that, this is when everything started to really change and boil down to it.
So I get out in 2016.
I'm trying to get my life together.
I'm trying to stay off heroin, but I'm still going to the bars.
I'm getting blackout drunk.
When you're a heroin addict, that's really good.
You're real proud of yourself.
All I'm doing is drinking.
I'm getting my prescription for my Xanax.
I'm doing good, but I'm blacking out all the time.
But I'm going to church.
That was the one thing that changed.
I started going to church two or three times a month.
And nothing happened, though, but I would go, and it was just, for me, it was just the one day that I could be someone else.
I hated to have to be who I was, and I just wanted to go and pretend to be somebody else, or just feel like I could get away from my life or something.
There's this common thread from the beginning of the story through this point, which is you're trying to escape an identity that you don't like, and trying to escape Time and space, right?
This is something that I've heard from friends of mine who have been addicted to drugs and booze and stuff.
And frankly, even I feel if I have a drink at the bar after work, which is, oh, it's kind of like time slows down.
I'm so stressed.
I'm on this tight schedule.
Ah, but now time Ah, all the constraints of that work, all that stuff, that's gone for right now.
You're finding that in all these different ways, and one does find this.
Church on Sunday you go, and if the liturgy is proper, then it is different.
It's supposed to be different from the world.
You're in the world a lot of the time, and then the church is A kingdom that is not of this world, right?
Yeah, and that's what it was.
It just was like something cool to do that, you know, I did it by myself, and so I met this girl that would take me.
And so I started doing that, but again, nothing changed in my life.
As far as, like, I wasn't doing heroin, and that was about it.
But I'm doing everything else I was doing, you know what I mean?
I'm still sleeping around, I'm still drinking, I'm still doing this and that.
And I started getting more into music, and I was like, alright, I'm gonna do music, that's what I'm gonna pursue in life.
So I started doing that.
And then I'm building my life back up.
I finally get my license back after not having it for a few years.
I get a restricted license.
I get a car.
And two days after I get the car, I wreck into a fire truck.
I get a DUI.
I had it for two days.
And a fire truck pulled in front of me.
I hit it.
There was no damage, but the cops come.
My friend's with me.
He's passed out in the passenger seat.
So they arrest both of us.
I get a DUI.
I get out.
And I start trying to get back up on my feet.
I move into a basement.
I was living with my dad at the time.
And my parents were split up at this time.
They split up when I was like 17.
So I'm living with my dad at the time.
And I'm trying to get my life together.
I have a job.
I'm doing landscaping.
I'm working to get on my feet.
And so I have this stuff that I'm building.
And then all of a sudden it was like... And here's the thing about God is that you don't see Him working a lot of times in the moment.
It's when you look back.
And so I didn't notice any of this.
It was, but all of a sudden I started feeling bad about how I was prescribed suboxone, which is like to get people off heroin and stuff, but I would shoot it up, which you're not supposed to do, you know?
But when you're a heroin addict, if something's water soluble, you want to do it that way.
It's just better, right?
And so I started feeling guilty about that.
So again, for me, that's like, why do I feel bad about this?
Why is my conscience speaking to me?
Yeah, it was weird.
And then I remember I read, because mind you, I'm going to church still.
I started reading the Bible one night, because I would read the Bible.
People would be like, yeah, just read the Bible.
And so I'd be like flustered, want to get high.
And I'd open the Bible and read like two lines and be like, this doesn't help.
And I'd chuck it across.
Like I was, you know, I would try.
And so I'm calling on God, but nothing was happening.
I'm like, nothing's working.
And I always tell that to people, because a lot of times we think God is like...
Hey, I'm ready for you.
Come on, come do this for me now.
Well, that's what the New Age people say.
I'm going to manifest this reality.
So I'm in charge.
Whatever I want, I'm going to get it if I just think hard enough.
It's like, you're not God.
That's not how that works.
That's what I always tell them.
Create a tree right now.
That's real manifesting.
Make a tree grow.
So one night I read the Bible.
I get home from church and I open the Bible and I start reading 1 Samuel.
And I don't know what happened, but I got pulled into this story like it was the best thing that I had ever read.
And I'm reading this stuff like, what?
Do you remember which part?
It was a whole thing about the Ark of the Covenant and Eli's sons, you know, tampering with the sacrifices and God's like, I'm taking the covenant.
And you know what I'm saying?
The Ark of the Covenant.
And it was like, yo, this is crazy.
You know, this is a crazy story.
And what was wild is it was true.
When I read it, I said, this is real.
And I said, this is so cool.
And then that was about it.
I kept going with my life.
Well, I get a new car.
This is three weeks after I wrecked the other car.
I get a new car.
My dad takes me to get a car, pick this car up.
And I'm sitting there.
My dad even says, he says, I have a bad feeling about this.
Because I don't even really technically have my restricted license at that time.
I had the DUI.
I'm out on bond for a DUI.
And I get the car.
I have it for 20 minutes.
I'm on my way home.
I took tags off my dad's van.
Put it on.
I'm like, I'm going straight home to get tags and all that.
So I'm driving it super illegally.
Don't have insurance, nothing.
Buy this car.
And I'm 20 minutes down the road.
And I'm going to switch lanes.
I'm at a light to turn left.
There's a light to go straight.
And I look over my shoulder twice.
I'm sober and everything.
There's no cars coming.
And I go to pull out.
And all of a sudden, this car comes over the hill going like 60 miles an hour.
And just crushes my car.
I mean, folds it in half, carries me into the middle of the intersection.
And then somehow the car turned back straight.
And I said, oh, no.
I said, I'm out of here.
And I started trying to drive away.
But then I said, oh, my name's in the title.
It's crushed in the glove box.
So I said, I think I should pull over.
So I pulled over.
I get arrested for that.
Driving on suspended.
They charge everything's my fault just because I wasn't licensed.
It was all on me.
So that happened.
I get out.
My mom feels bad.
She comes to the scene.
I'm upset.
I'm like, dude, I'm trying my best to get ahead in life.
I'm trying not to do heroin.
So my life is crumbling around me.
And it was like everywhere I turned, disaster, mayhem.
And so I get home.
And then a week later, I get kicked out of my basement for having someone over or whatever.
And the landlord kicks me out.
And then they had something hidden in the lease where it was like, they don't even have to give me a notice.
And I guess I signed that probably, you know, unknowingly.
So it was like, yeah, you got three days and you're out.
So now I'm homeless.
So this is, this is like June 2016 or 2017.
And so I had been out for a year.
Now I'm homeless.
Everything just kind of hit the fan at this point, you know, perfectly worked out where Everybody had kind of turned their back on me as far as friends that were kind of there.
All those relationships started falling apart.
My parents, they still love me.
They were still there for me, but it was like- They were not buying you any more cars.
Cars are out.
You're done, yeah.
You're on your own.
I respect that.
It was due time.
So, all that is kind of there.
And now I'm just there in the woods, and I'm going into this really dark place of just being comfortably numb again.
I'm working at Fridays.
You know, and so where everything shifted was about a month into this.
I was working on Fridays one night and this lady came up to me and she said, God said you need to see him.
And I stopped going to church like three months prior.
This was a lady from church that came up to you?
No, a lady that I worked with.
She came up to me and she said, God said that you need to see him.
And I was like, yeah, I know.
I said, how do I get in touch with him?
How do I make a meeting?
Yeah, let's do this, you know.
I'm ready, so.
But it hit me.
I was like, because at this point, I believe there's a God.
I know the spiritual world is 100% real.
There's not a shadow in my mind that that is real.
So I already am aware.
I'm like, that was really weird.
But, you know, there's an Italian expression.
Between saying and doing is a whole wide ocean.
You can say it.
You can say, I know intellectually this is true.
But, OK, what are you going to do?
Right.
Yeah, and that's kind of where I was at.
I was like, all right, I'll talk to him, go to him.
But this has been a year where I'm crying out to him.
Nothing's really happened yet.
And so I go to the AA meeting.
I go to an AA meeting down the street.
And I leave and go into the chapel.
And I'm going into the chapel.
And I said, all right, God, I'm here.
What do you want?
And I sit down.
Nothing happens.
I read the Bible.
I just open it, and I read this page.
Don't think anything of it.
Leave.
A week later, I come back.
I do the exact same thing.
I don't even know why, though.
I'm going to the AA meeting because I'm trying to get my life together, but something pulls me into the chapel.
Hey, God, I'm here again.
What do you want?
Open the Bible.
And I get halfway through reading through it, and I realize, oh, this is the same exact verse I read the last time I was here, Psalm 18.
And so I'm like, what?
That's crazy.
So now, all of a sudden, something's got my attention.
And so now about, let's fast forward maybe like a week.
Now everything starts rapidly moving, right?
So a week later, I was with some guys in the woods.
They smoked this stuff called K2.
It started off as like an incense, and they would sell it at the gas stations.
Well, it leveled up, and now it's like a whole other thing.
It's very, very powerful.
It's like the drug is incense?
It started off, it was like an incense.
And you'd smoke and it would resemble weed.
But I never liked it because it just didn't feel right.
Something about it wasn't right.
And so basically...
I would see these guys bug out on it.
They would be slumped over, be acting crazy, and I was like, there is no way that this does that.
I'm going to test that for myself.
Yeah, and that's really what it was, because I'm in my mind, I said, I do real drugs.
There's no way this does that.
And so they told me, they said, just take one hit.
It's so strong.
And I said, no.
I hit it like three times.
And next thing I know, as soon as I pass it to someone, At this point, I've overdosed on heroin like four or five times.
So I know what it feels like to like, you know, there's a split second of just your body registering whatever you just did was too much for us.
And so next thing I know is I just hear them say, oh, he's going out, and I just feel myself falling to the ground, and I start to crawl.
And then next thing I know, I'm in a dream world, right?
And in this dream world, I'm walking down a path.
There's demons on my left and demons on my right.
And they're basically laughing at me.
They're different sizes.
They have these little robes.
They have these big grins.
But I'm not really paying attention to them, because I'm following another one that had its back to me.
And so we're walking down this hall, and we get to this big door.
And so right before we get to the door, it says, one more step.
You're almost there.
And it turned around and when it looked at me, it was an ugly demon.
And I said, hell no.
And I turned around, and when I turned around, I woke up in a pool of sweat.
And so, I was that one, that was like another hook where just like, what the heck was that?
That was not normal.
What did that look like?
They look like little gremlins, almost like from Lord of the Rings, the little guy that chases the ring, I think.
I don't even think I've ever watched that movie for real, but I know the little guy.
You meant the real thing.
Yeah, they look kind of like that.
The ones I've seen, they're just ugly.
They're deformed, almost like little...
Almost like you see in horror movies.
That's what they look like.
Some of them be like three feet tall, some of them be like six feet tall.
There are different sizes and they're ugly, but they all have these big smiles.
They're like these mocking spirits or something.
And so that happened.
And a week after that, I go to see my grandma with my dad.
And so I go to see her and I go out one night.
And I come home and I went to the bar, I was drinking and stuff and I come back and I'm sleeping with my uncle.
It was like two couches and a long bed or whatever connected.
So I'm sleeping in the bed with him basically.
And I'm about to fall asleep and I start hearing the TV.
I'm watching American Pickers.
I'm halfway asleep, so I'm awake.
And I'll never forget, their voices change into demonic voices.
So their voices turn into demon voices, and they start talking about me.
And I said, I don't know, have you ever heard of sleep paralysis?
Yeah, I had it once, certainly, and maybe twice.
Yeah.
And it's very scary.
Right.
Because it sounds like you hear demons.
Yeah.
And what do you do?
And you lose control of your body.
Yeah, you can't move, so you're just there hearing.
I forget what, I just heard like a weird demon voice and I was totally, I was awake, but I couldn't move my body.
I thought, the hell, you know, what is this?
And then, you know, 30 seconds later it was over, I could move again.
Yeah.
I had to look.
I said, what was that?
And it's sleep paralysis.
It's freaky.
And you know, it's funny, actually, to backtrack real quick, when that first started happening, because I had it a lot, it first started happening when I started doing Buddhism.
The first time I started having sleep paralysis was when I started getting deep into Buddhism.
I started having it all the time.
And it freaked me out, but it also intrigued me.
So it was like this double-edged thing where it scared me, but then when it wouldn't happen, I'd kind of be like, no, I want to see what happens if I stay in there and don't fight it.
But anyways, that starts happening.
So I'm in sleep paralysis.
It feels like something's getting in my body.
I'm like this.
It's like something's trying to get in my body.
And the TV says, his name's Josh.
He's from Virginia.
We need to destroy him.
They're talking about me.
I'm hearing it.
And I'm feeling something get in my body.
Next thing I know, I'm finding myself on the floor.
And I guess I was screaming, crying or something, my dad said.
I woke up the whole house, making these moans or whatever.
They come downstairs.
I'm like, oh, I'm good, I'm good.
And I lay back down.
Well, when I lay back down, all of a sudden, I'm having something tell me to kill my uncle.
In my head, something's telling me, kill your uncle.
And obviously there was no reason to think that or want to do that.
So I'm sitting here thinking like, what?
Where is this thought coming from?
And while I'm saying no, I'm also simultaneously getting up to do it.
So it's like I'm on autopilot and I find myself standing over my uncle.
And something just crushed his head.
Just squeezed his head.
And I started going like this over his head, and then his eyes popped open.
And he freaked him out, obviously.
And he went in the other room.
And he went and slept somewhere else.
So that was number two.
That was wake up number two, as far as the demons.
Demonic realm, right?
So now I'm like, dude, demons are really real.
There's no doubt about it.
And I'm getting kind of freaked out.
Yeah, yeah.
And so I come home, and another couple weeks pass.
And so basically, I come to this place where I want to go to a rehab.
And so I'm in a hotel room one night, and I said, I'm going to get high one more time.
At this point, I think I was clean off heroin for like three months.
But I was shooting up like crack and all those types of stuff.
And I didn't even like it.
I was just doing whatever was around.
As long as it wasn't heroin, I would do it.
And you think you're going to rehab.
So all right, one more for the road.
Yep, yep.
This is so stupid, but everybody thinks that way.
It doesn't matter what it is, just like, ah well, you know, one more for the road.
Tomorrow, that's when I'll clean up.
Yeah, and the same thing with getting out of jail.
You know that the overdose statistics are, you're 129 times more likely to overdose within two weeks of getting out of jail, or like a program.
And that's like crazy, you know, times, but that's what it was.
It was three months, I was like, I'm gonna get high one more time.
And I remember I was sitting in the bathroom and, I mean, at this point I was pretty broken, you know, like I was pretty, what am I going to do?
And I started talking to God.
I said, you know, Lord, I said, I said the sinner prayer.
I said, I went to church.
I literally called on you to help me every time I went to go buy drugs.
I begged you to help me and stop me.
I said, what else do you want from me?
I said, this is all I know.
I'm sitting here looking at these drugs.
I hate these drugs.
This is all I know.
What else do you expect from me?
I said, forgive me.
And I started saying the Lord's Prayer while I was tying my arm and doing all this stuff.
I started saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, while I was doing it.
I said, forgive me.
This is it.
That's all I know.
And so I subconsciously knew I was going to overdose because I knew I was doing too much.
It wasn't intentional, but I was just like, you know what?
I hope it happens, but I'm not trying to make it happen.
But if it does, whatever.
I think I get what you're talking about, but I couldn't articulate that.
That you're saying, it's not intentional, but I knew it was too much, and I was doing it anyway.
But it wasn't quite intentional.
But it wasn't not intentional either.
Yeah, it was just hopelessness.
It was just like, whatever happens will be, that kind of thing.
Even though you know what's going to happen.
It's out of my hands, even though I know exactly what's going to happen.
I did, but I also, it's funny because you get this pride when you get an addiction.
There's this pride associated with it where you build up tolerances.
Yeah.
Like I had to overdose, like I said, like four or five times.
And so you build up this ego with it where you're like, I'll be good.
I came back the last time.
I'm good.
So you get this pride with it.
And so that's what it was.
It was like, I think I'm going to overdose.
I'll be all right, though.
That's what I thought.
So I did it.
And I instantly, again, my body goes into fight mode.
I stand up and I said, run.
Just keep your body moving.
Because I felt that feeling that comes before an overdose.
It's a split second of knowing.
And I ran out the door, and next thing I know, I'm in an ambulance.
And so I'm waking up in the ambulance, like, oh no, again.
Because now I'm thinking, my first thought is, I had drugs, or I had a needle.
You know, cops.
And so I wake up, they revive me, and the cop says, now you're going to jail.
You say, do you want to go to the hospital?
I said, no.
He said, all right.
Then you go to the other place.
Yeah.
And that was the moment that really everything changed.
I go to jail.
I'm in a suicide watch.
So they take basically the jail experience and make it worse.
It's like they take all your clothes.
You don't get the regular food.
And I'm sitting in there and I basically was like, you know what?
I'm going through hell on earth.
And I remember I looked over at my cell wall and it said cold hell on the wall.
I'm on the phone, my mom's, you know, crying.
She's like, you almost died again.
Everything's hitting me.
It was like for the first time in my life, all my choices smacked me in the face in a different way.
Like, I always knew I was just screwing up.
But this time it was like God put everything just in a pile right in front of me.
And I'm in this room going through literally withdrawals from multiple things and just having to sit there and look at it and knowing there's nothing.
Like, you can't go anywhere for five days.
And all I said was, God have mercy, God have mercy.
I said the Lord's Prayer over and over.
That's all I could do.
And I said, if you help me, I'll be a good boy.
That's all I want.
I said, I just want to be a good boy.
I said, Lord, I won't go to the bar anymore.
I don't even want a girlfriend.
I just want to be good.
That was how I was done.
And I get out, and they transfer me to the little pod.
And I sit there for like three days, and I remember, because in a jail pod, people do nothing.
It's like people just sit there and talk about terrible things, play cards, or watch TV.
That's all that they're doing.
It's like the most miserable way to spend your time.
George Bernard Shaw said that hell is the place where you have nothing to do all day but amuse yourself.
I guess we'll play cards now.
I guess we'll talk about crime now.
Do whatever.
That's what it was.
And I sat there and I said, I'm not doing this again.
I just, because I had just did the 18 months, like 11 months prior.
I said, oh no.
I said, I'm not.
And I know in my mind, I brought back another felony.
I'm already on probation.
I have eight years over my head.
I said, I'm not doing this again.
In my mind, I'm like, oh my gosh.
I'm probably gonna be here like five years.
I said, I'm done.
They're gonna toast me.
I'm done.
My life is over.
I said, well, I'm not sitting in this pod.
I'm gonna join a program, something.
So there was this program called The Mind Dorm, which was, it stands for Men in a New Direction.
And it's in the Prince William County Jail.
I don't know where else it is.
So I hear about this.
It's a faith-based program in the jail.
And so I go to it.
And I remember everyone's like, dude, don't go there.
They've got rules.
You can't cuss there.
You have to wake up early.
All this stuff, right?
I'm like, I don't care.
I'm not sitting here with you guys.
Are you not there?
OK, cool.
Then I'm going.
So I walk in.
And the funny thing is there was a friend of mine that was there.
And I was supposed to move in with him two weeks later, and he disappeared.
He got locked up.
And so I walk, and I'm assigned to his bunk.
I'm like, I guess we moved in together one way or another, you know?
And so I was there.
And after a week, I almost left, because it was like, you had to wake up at 6.
And in jail, you don't want to be awake all day.
You know what I mean?
You want to sleep as late as you can.
And so all this is happening, and I'm about to leave.
But then one day, it was probably the second week I'm thinking about leaving, something spoke to me in my heart again.
It was like this thought of, why don't you just try?
It was just a thought that wasn't my thought, but it was so loud.
It silenced everything.
I said, why don't you just try for once?
And I kind of thought about it, and I was like, you know what?
Where else am I going to go?
I said, when these speakers come in, I might as well listen.
If I've got to read the Bible at this time of the day, I might as well read it.
What else are you going to do?
Exactly.
And so I started doing that, and it was like a week went by, and the next thing I knew, I wanted to read the Bible for fun.
So when it was free time, and everyone was watching TV, I'd be reading the Bible.
And then I would start praying.
Mind you, I'm going through withdrawals still, because suboxone withdrawals take like a month.
I'm not sleeping.
I think I'm doing, if I'm lucky, three years in prison, and somehow I'm starting to be happier than I ever have been in my life.
So it's this contradiction going on, but I'm feeling more alive every day.
All of a sudden, people would come up to me and they'd be like, dude, what happened to you?
You're different.
One guy came up to me, and he said, dude, every time I'm having a bad day, when I look at you, he said, I feel hope.
Because I just started having this joy.
And I didn't know what was happening to me.
I'd look at myself in the mirror and be like, what's happening to you?
Because I just felt like I was changing, and I didn't connect the dots still.
I still didn't connect the dots, because there was no moment that was like, oh, you know, burning bush.
It was just, I'd read the Word, I'd pray, and all of a sudden, I would be in conversations, and they'd be talking about drugs, and I'd be like, This is a stupid conversation.
I'll go read my Bible.
And that was like the first thing I started noticing.
About two weeks after that, I would start praying.
I'd be like in prayer, worshiping Jesus, whatever.
And it would just feel like a love bomb would fall on me of like, it reminded me of how I felt when I was on Mushrooms except it was a hundred times more pure.
Like that uncontrollable laughter and just joy I felt on Mushrooms, it made that look like creek water compared to Dasani or something.
You know what I mean?
It was like, I thought that was joy.
And I would have to do mushrooms to have that joy, but that wasn't even real joy.
That was like artificial joy.
I was laughing.
I thought it was joy, but I was getting covered in this love.
It freaked me out because I literally felt like I was high almost.
It was like I was high on life and I'd be laughing.
I had joy.
All I wanted to do was read my Bible and pray.
And it just took off, really.
I was there for two months in this cocoon of Jesus, and that's all I wanted to do.
It was like everything in my life made sense.
I started knowing, like, oh, you have a purpose.
Just everything came together.
And so basically what happened, though, is my lawyer was like, you're looking at a year.
He said, you're going to stay in here, your low end is 18 months.
You're probably looking at two years or so.
I was 18 months to three years or something was the guidelines.
So he said, get comfortable.
And I didn't care.
I am comfortable.
I was.
I really was.
And I remember my mom came and she said, you're not going to get a bond.
And I said, praise God.
I said, mom, I met Jesus.
He's real.
And so I was dead serious in this.
I was fully in love.
I met him.
It was like every time I would call on his name, I would just feel.
And I'm not gonna lie, I used it like a drug.
While I was there, that first month, I'd be like, I need to pray to Jesus so I could feel this joy, right?
And that's how it was.
And so I was just getting changed radically.
And I remember one night I prayed and I said, Lord, I said, if you get me out of here, I said, I'll pray for every person I see.
I said, I'll do whatever you want me to do.
I said, I'm 100% in.
And I said, you don't owe me anything.
I made this bed.
I get it.
But that'd be cool, right?
I said, it'd be cool, Lord, if you get me a Christian halfway house so I can bond out so I can look good for court at least.
I'll still do the time, but I'll look better in their eyes.
So a week later, my lawyer comes in.
He's like, hey, I got a ticket out of here for you.
I got this Christian halfway house.
He said, you get a bed-to-bed transfer.
It's a six-month program.
If you complete it, you know, the judges will probably work with you.
And so I did that.
And in that time, it was like my relationship with God just took a whole new, like a whole, it just kept growing.
And I remember knowing like, If I don't stick to this with everything I have, I'm gonna go back to what I was doing.
And so I was in another state, I didn't tell anyone I was home.
And so yeah, I mean, and then a year later I go to court, and the judge basically was like, look, there's no point of locking you up again.
My PO loved me, so she's writing good reviews.
It's like, I'm in a halfway house, you know, like I have my job, everything is... And so that's the... So you, then you come to the end of that.
And is that it?
Is that happily ever after?
You don't do drugs.
You don't, you know, commit crimes.
I guess your crimes were all drug related, so it's not like you were going and burglarizing people's houses or anything.
But is that it?
That's the end of the story?
No, no.
I'm in this evangelism mode.
Because I have that addictive personality, I'm all in for this Jesus stuff.
I'll tell you too, I don't have a particularly addictive personality.
When I was an atheist for 10 years, I reverted in my early 20s.
And after a kind of slow process of first believing that God exists and then, you know, that the Bible is real, Christ is who he says he is.
And when it clicked, though, I had that same feeling of, What do I do now?
I just need to tell everybody.
Whatever I am doing doesn't matter.
I need to just go.
And I think this happens to all converts and reverts, or many of them.
A friend of mine converted.
Very numinous experience where he said, I was filled with the Holy Spirit.
I said, describe it for me.
He's like, I can't describe it for you, buddy, but I'll tell you this.
When it happened to me, I was just totally bowled over and my first prayer was, Lord, please don't make me a Jesus freak.
He said, please don't.
But you just feel, and it's funny in that You've got the zeal of a convert, so all you want to do is go out and talk about it.
But you are probably rather immature in your faith at this point, because it's so new.
In a way, you're the best person to go evangelize, but in a way, you're the worst person to go evangelize, because you just haven't been doing it.
It's not in your muscle memory exactly yet.
If you have an addictive personality, I'm sure it's that times ten.
No, that's basically what it was.
I was addicted to reading my Bible.
I was addicted to praying and worshiping.
And I was addicted to telling people about Jesus.
That's exactly what it was.
And so that went on though for a while.
That was my life to the point where, I mean, honestly, there was a point where that first year I worked as little as possible at a labor finder's, you know what I mean, at a temp agency, making like $50 a day, just enough to pay rent for my halfway house, and I would spend all my free time going and praying for people and evangelizing.
I treated it like a job, and so I'd spend my whole day praying, and then I'd go pray for people.
Come home, pray, go out.
And I did that for a while, and then so basically what happened was, I got married a little over a year after getting saved.
The girl that was taking me to church ended up being my wife.
It's convenient.
Yeah.
So that like invited another level of like just life responsibility.
And so then I had to kind of change how I was moving.
And then I'd say a year after that, it was like I started reassessing everything.
And basically what I mean by that is I started to not feel that, like, Jesus high every time I prayed.
I started to not get those, you know, I always joke around and say the best intercessor is a newborn again believer, because it's like when I first got saved, every prayer was getting answered, like, boom, boom, boom.
And it was nice, and then it got to the point where it was like, I had to wait, no's, or whatever.
Yeah, I explain that to myself.
When I reverted, in those early years, You know, it's weird.
It's really weird how palpable it all is, how just real it is all the time.
Now looking back on it, these things still happen.
Everything is rich in meaning and the world is teeming in miracles, but I look back on it and I think, oh, I guess I just really needed that.
I sometimes think it's God saying, hey, you stupid idiot!
Why don't you get it?
And then after a certain amount of time, you don't need that as much anymore.
Yeah, that's the process of maturing, right?
Yeah, and I think that's what it was, was like, I was used to God being so on me, kind of.
And then it started to feel a lot more distant.
It started to feel a lot more like faith.
And so I started to basically just really get real analytical.
I started to, I got out of that childlike faith of just believing and just being.
And I started to Watch a lot of like atheist talk about stuff.
I started to just, I was just questioning like, cause it was like, basically I got to this point where I was like, all right, I know Jesus is real.
I said, how can I, like, I feel like I'm starting to get arrogant.
Like, you know, cause I'm telling people I'm out here preaching Jesus.
I'm telling people they need to repent of sins.
I'm, I'm being that guy.
And I believe it.
I believe it for me, but I'd say, how do I know it's only for me?
What if there was other ways for other people?
The idea, the technical term is indifferentism.
What if all religions are pretty much the same man, and you worship this part of the elephant, and I worship this, whatever.
It's a very popular idea.
It's extremely wrong, but it is a very popular idea.
So you're exploring this, and you're saying, well, maybe Maybe what I'm doing is just one thing among many that we could do.
Yeah, and it was more of like, Jesus is the truth, the way, the life, but what if there's more to what's been presented?
You know, like, what if there's more to this than just what I've been finding in church?
Do you mean more in that Other religions are true, or do you mean more in that Christianity is about more than this?
Christianity is about more than this.
Yeah, so it was kind of like, maybe there's more to this than what we think.
And I started getting, looking into more like early church, and started just looking, just researching everything.
I mean, I put my faith up on the altar kind of, and just was like, just trying to, it was almost like I was trying to crush my faith, you know, in an honest way of like, look God, this is where I'm at.
And then I started to get, I guess, bitter.
That's what really started to happen.
I started to get bitter because I was praying for people and I was doing God's work, I thought.
And I started to get prideful and feel like, well, look, I'm doing this, this, this.
And it wasn't like, what, you're not doing something for me.
It was, why aren't you helping them?
Like, that's kind of how I started to feel because, you know, I come from addiction.
So I was trying to help other addicts.
I'm trying to help.
And it was like, you know, I was trying to lead them to Jesus and it wasn't working the way I thought it should.
And so I started getting prideful.
I started thinking I was God's, you know, boss almost.
And that's kind of, cause I, you know, I'm like, well, I've been doing this for two years.
I don't know what's really coming of it.
My life has changed, but I said I want to see other people's lives change too or I don't feel, you know, it's like I don't feel like I could really be confident in this if it's not producing fruit for other people.
And so I found this, in my research one day I found this article about this Mystic group that basically took mushrooms as a form of basically connecting to God.
It was normal and that's what the Bible referred to as manna.
So it was this rabbit hole.
They said that manna was- Was mushrooms.
Was shrooms.
Wow.
They said it popped up every morning.
Yeah, when I read that passage about the man, it doesn't exactly resemble shrooms to me, but that's very funny that they're saying this, because with mushrooms in particular, but all of it, DMT, acid, all the psychedelic stuff, there is this weird culture where if you see a heroin addict on the street, you say, oh, there's a junkie, there's another bum, hope he doesn't kill himself.
But then someone says, oh, I do shrooms all the time.
You say, wow, You must be so spiritual.
Wow!
You're both poisoning yourselves.
That is the aesthetic of it though, right?
For me, it was like I still had these memories of the positive from it.
So I still, at that point, I hadn't connected the dots to this was part of the problem.
In my mind, I was the problem because I was on drugs.
So now I'm starting to think that seed is planted.
Right.
That was a prefiguring of your true enlightenment, which is actually in this relationship with your Savior.
Yeah.
And I didn't do anything with it for a while.
It started to kind of just brew under the surface.
And I said, you know what, Josh?
I said, maybe because you were on heroin and all this other stuff, what if now that you're clean, you haven't done hard drugs in a few years, Maybe now you can take mushrooms.
It's natural.
I'm not talking about acid.
I'm talking about mushrooms because they're natural.
And now you can probably connect with Jesus in a better way.
This relationship isn't as supernatural as it was in the beginning.
Yeah, you're losing.
Your tolerance is growing, let's say.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're not feeling that high.
And so I said, maybe mushrooms will do the trick.
And not only for that, but also Maybe I can get some answers for other people because I'm encountering this question all the time about people doing psychedelics and seeing it be a thing.
I said, you know, God, my heart is to like, I put my heart before God of like, look, this is where I'm at.
I said, I kind of feel like doing it.
And, you know, I said, worst case scenario, I find out it's not good.
And, you know, I don't do it anymore.
Well, the thing about it is that, and I say this as humble as possible, when I say I was in it, I mean I really was sold out.
I was living right.
I wasn't like a Christian that was dabbling in sin and the world and going to church.
I mean, my life was dedicated to this.
That's all I thought about.
That's all I did.
I didn't have a life.
That was my life.
And so it wasn't like I was already slipping away or something.
And so basically, months pass.
And so one night I go to my friend's house and we're gonna make music.
And while he's loading up the beat and everything.
And this was a friend of mine that it was like the one of like two friends that I had that, the old friends that I didn't completely cut off.
But it wasn't, you know, it was more just like I would make music with them.
I still loved them.
So it's like I'd keep my distance, but show up.
And so anyways, he dumps out his backpack of chocolate mushrooms all over the, right over the bed, right in front of me.
And he basically was like, here, you know what I mean?
Here, try one.
You know what I mean?
And now the thoughts of what was, I was thinking the last few months pop up.
And so I said, You know what, Josh?
I said, I'm tired of this internally.
I'm like, you know what?
I'm tired of there being fear with this.
I just want to face this.
I don't like the fear.
There's this fear of, I shouldn't do this.
And I didn't like that.
I said, no, I don't like fear.
I'm going to confront this.
I'm going to take it.
I said, it's now or never.
I'm not going to sit here and think about it anymore.
Processing it in my mind, I just wanted to try it.
People get so sick of the anxiety and the hemming and hawing and the moral conscience telling you no, no, no, that you think, well, here's one way I can shut up that moral conscience.
I'm just going to do it.
And then I won't have that anxiety of anticipation anymore.
Yeah, I think that's probably what it was.
It was like, you know what, if you're not gonna do it tonight, it's just gonna bother you.
So I did it.
And I ate, it was an eighth of mushrooms.
And just for context, that was the normal dose that I would take.
That was like a normal go-to dose.
It's definitely on the higher end as far as like when you're looking at microdosing and stuff, it's a lot lower than that.
But I had taken much larger doses, too.
I had taken, you know, double that.
Of everything.
Yeah, yeah.
And so to me it was like, this is kind of mild, right?
That's how I'm thinking.
And so I take it and it starts off good the first 20 minutes.
I'm just getting in my vibe and just listening to music and it's all good vibes and good thoughts and I'm happy and it's going to be good.
And then at one point my friend says, hey, these guys want to go to the bar.
Do you want to come?
I said, no.
I said, I just ate.
I don't want to go to the bar.
And so he said, well, I'm going to go.
You can stay here if you want.
Is that cool?
I said, all right, I guess.
I'm stuck here now, you know, kind of thing.
And so he leaves.
And this stuff, it takes like probably 30 minutes to kick in.
So in the meantime, you start kind of feeling your stomach will start to turn.
There's like this pre-almost anxiety kind of thing.
Like you feel it kind of starting to creep up on you.
And so I already had to feel that.
So I said, oh, we're about to go into this.
And so my friend, he walks out the door.
The second he walked out the door, it was like that feeling of sleep paralysis, the feeling of demons and evil walks in the room.
It was like this transfer.
He left, and the first thing I noticed was I feel like I just got set up unknowingly.
I feel like my friend just set me up, and he was used as a vessel and had no idea, completely not in his mind, knowing what he was doing.
But I just got set up here.
Which you did.
100%.
And that was so clear.
You know what I mean?
I was like, wow, I just got set up.
And so he walks out, and evil just walks in.
Mind you, I have had demonic encounters as a Christian at this point, just based off doing God's work and having demons come and attack me and stuff.
I had cast out demons and all that kind of stuff.
So I know this presence.
I'm still 100% sober-minded.
I'm 100% in my rational mind.
I feel it tangibly come in the room.
I said, oh, I know that presence.
And so I said, oh, no, this isn't good.
But I'm like, all right, I know how mushrooms work.
I'm going to stay positive, keep my mind right.
If I feed into this, it's going to get worse.
I started ignoring it.
I said, I'm good.
And I go into the bathroom.
And I'm talking.
I'm cheering.
I'm giving myself a pep talk in the mirror.
And I said, Josh, you took mushrooms.
I said, all right, you're going to be OK.
I said, you can't die.
And the second I said, you can't die, I heard a voice speak in my heart, the same way I always have heard God speak to me.
Cross-check everything.
Who says I can't take your life whenever I want?
And it wasn't in a way of anger.
It was a checking of my pride.
Who says I just can't stop your heart whenever I want?
What do you mean you can't die?
I could just do it now, for no reason.
You could just drop.
So it was like, oh, I could die.
This could be it.
So then I started being like, oh wow, this isn't good.
I started feeling like, all right, I need to start repenting.
So I started praying, and it was like as soon as I started to pray and started to ask God to help me, I felt like a dark cloud was just coming around me.
I could tangibly feel it.
I could feel it closing in on me.
But I'm still in this state of like, It's going to be okay.
You're good.
And I'm like, you know what, Jesus, forgive me.
You know how we think, like, oh, I messed up.
Oh, Lord, forgive me.
And we're good.
So it's like forgiveness doesn't equate to consequence.
So it's like the consequences were still there.
And then I realized, oh, no, I opened this door.
I know better.
I'm not a baby.
I'm, you know, a young child.
I knew better.
And so now it's all hitting me like, oh, What did you do?
And you just opened this door.
And you're going to be stuck in this place because now I know, I already have my spiritual eyes open, sober-minded, in the natural.
So now that I'm spiritually awake and not dead in sin, now when I actually open that veil, it's going to be clear.
I'm going to know what it is now.
And so I started praying, and I'm just feeling like death encompassed me.
That's what it talks about in Psalm 18, death encompassed me.
That's what it feels like.
I called my wife and I said, she was out with friends at dinner.
I said, you need to come get me.
She had no idea what I was doing.
I wasn't planning this, right?
I can't imagine she would have approved.
Yeah, no.
She doesn't know.
It's starting to get worse.
Leading up to when she got there, it started to feel like something was pulling.
It started to feel like my spirit was Wanting to go somewhere.
I can't explain it.
It felt like the light was flickering.
It was like someone was pulling me somewhere.
By the time she gets there, I'm not able to really function at this point.
I couldn't breathe well.
And so she's trying to talk, like she thinks this is just normal Josh coming in the car, like, hey, why couldn't anyone drive?
And I said, I can't talk right now.
I said, just pray.
I said, just pray for me.
I didn't even have time to explain to her what was going on.
By this point, I was, I couldn't breathe.
It was like, I was, and she's even like, she's like, what, what's wrong?
Like, cause I'm like, I'm gasping for breath.
And I'm feeling my body go in and out.
It's like I'm here talking to you, and the next thing you know, it's like, boom, snapped into a dream realm.
It's like in and out.
Like in and out of consciousness.
But it would just be a black void.
So we're going through this whole car ride, and every now and then I would try to tell her, like, I can't talk right now.
I'm like, over 30 minutes, I give her the story.
Like, oh, I took mushrooms.
All right.
And so I get home.
By the time I get home, it was just fully on.
I run into my room, I lay on the floor, and at this point I'm just getting pulled.
I'm feeling my soul just get pulled out of my body.
And so I'm in this dark void, and next thing I know, there starts to be sight coming to it, because it's just an abyss of blackness.
And so I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden I realize I'm in this giant hand.
So I'm in this hand, and then I see demons right in front of me.
And it's all the same demons I've seen in that one overdose.
I don't know if they were the exact same ones, but they looked the same.
Same breed.
Same breed, yeah.
Except this time, there was taller ones.
It was like they were the ones in charge.
They were higher ranking ones.
So I'm in this hand, and now I'm in another reality.
And now fear's like, what is going on?
Where am I?
The first thing that hits you is you're helpless.
That's, I think, the first thing that really got me, even before this happened, up to this point, it's knowing who are you gonna call?
What are you gonna do?
It's not like when you're a kid, you call your mom to help you.
There's nothing you can do.
The hospital can't help you.
You know what I mean?
There's nothing you can do right now, so you're just helpless.
So I'm in this, you know, I'm in this hand, and I'm seeing these demons, and so the one stands up, and then I'm looking at my attention, and once that one stands up, Like my attention diverts and now it was like this light tower.
It was like this thing if it was just tilted up and just lights just with no walls but you could see just a big light beam tower kind of thing with different colors.
And I knew that was like the kingdom of heaven and then I knew that I was in outer darkness of some sort.
I was in this in between place.
And so now this demon's stepping forward, and he's presenting a case to this tower.
And he said, we're tired of this kid.
He keeps coming into our kingdom, taking people out, and then he came back and ate off our table.
And it hit me right then and there.
You're an evangelist.
You're winning souls for Jesus all the time.
You really are coming into, you know, and I would.
I'd go into, you know, wherever, inner cities, wherever, any neighborhood, and just preach Jesus, talk about Jesus, get people saved, you know what I mean?
But you could bring a thousand people into the church, and you could wind up in the bad place.
Uh-huh, 100%.
What a phrase.
He keeps helping souls out of here, but then he comes and eats from our table.
Peter Kreeft, the theologian philosopher, he says that abortion is the demonic inversion of the Eucharist.
In the Eucharist, the priest holds up the consecrated host and says, He recites the word of our Lord and says, this is my body, which will be given up for you.
And what abortion does is uses the same words to a diabolically opposite end, which is, this is my body, this is my body.
I won't save, I'll kill for my body.
And even this idea of The Eucharist is manna from heaven.
You're seeing the figure of the Eucharist in the manna that comes down and saves the Israelites, gives them bread to eat.
And we now have this in the Holy Communion.
And as you said earlier, this idea that, no man, you know, what if the mushrooms are the act?
That's kind of like the manna.
But the demons are telling you in this trip, That's our food from our table that he's eating.
100%.
That was the crux of the whole thing for me.
The thing about the spirit realm is you don't need a lot of words to get a lot of revelation.
And nothing is spoken.
This is all telepathically.
It's just known.
In the spirit, nothing is hidden.
Nothing is hidden from the light, right?
So in the spirit, everything is just out in the open.
You don't have money to hide behind.
You don't have a facade.
Everything that you try to ignore is there, whether you like it or not, and it's seen.
And so it was that moment of being naked before everything.
Of me being a hypocrite in that moment, me backsliding me, whatever I was, everything was there.
Oops.
And now it was a matter of I'm in this hand that I can't just get out of this.
All right, see you later, guys.
This is serious.
I was in the courts of heaven.
I mean, it was literally they were presenting a case against me to God.
And so I'm sitting there, now I'm freaking out in the sense that I already was feeling my body, what was going on.
It felt like everything was shriveling up, you know?
It's like you could feel your organs drying up.
Fear becomes a jacket, like a living thing that comes around you.
Just despair, just, I mean, every negative emotion feeling you could think of is there and then it's heightened.
And I felt like a slug if you pour salt on it.
I felt my life literally just getting pulled out of me, shriveling up while I'm in this hand.
I feel my breath just getting pulled out of me.
And mind you, in real time, you feel like you're connected to your physical body.
So I'm still like 5-10% aware of what's happening in my body.
And every, you know, 10, 15, my wife's freaking out, you know?
And during this time, she's freaking out.
She doesn't know what to do.
She thinks, should I call a hospital?
What should I do?
But I know what's going on, so I'm telling her, just pray for me.
Just keep praying.
I was like, just pray.
And then I'd get pulled back into, and I'd be in this reality.
And so... Because you're not in...
physical danger of death, any more than any of us is at any given moment.
If you were on heroin or something, you would have been in physical danger of death.
But as you said consciously, you said, these are mushrooms.
Mushrooms at this dose, they're not going to kill you.
God tells you, well, I can stop your heart whenever I want.
But that's different.
It's not the mushroom.
If your wife had said, hey, you're high on heroin or something, And you said, well, don't call the doctors.
She probably would have just called the doctors anyway because there's a poison.
But what you're saying is, no, my danger right now Though I feel it physically, the danger that I'm in right now is a spiritual danger.
For sure.
And I mean, to be honest with you, to this day, I don't know if it was just spiritually that I would have died.
It felt physical.
That's the thing.
Physically, my body was not functioning.
It felt physical.
And the reason I say that is because people get this idea that, like I said, oh, you can't die from this or you can die from that.
The spiritual realm is what is really deciding the physical realm.
So it's like, that was a major infraction.
The technical language for this is that the matter is just like the stuff, and the spiritual realm is the The form, like our soul is the substantial form of our body.
And so, people try to really neatly separate these two things, but that's not really how it works.
You are your soul.
You are your body.
Those things are together, inseparably, for now, in this world.
And so, to try to say, well, no, that's just happening to my spirit.
It has no effect on my body.
Or, this is just happening to my body.
What are you talking about?
You're both.
So that's like one of the greatest mysteries I'm gonna get into right now.
But that's the mystery of it all.
Not even really the mystery, that's the truth behind it.
Is that that's like the spirit world is happening right now while we're sitting here talking.
So that's what the first thing it showed me was my body's literally laying there.
My soul is literally in the spirit realm.
So this is happening right now.
So when you see people physically going through something, you don't know what is happening spiritually a lot of times, right?
So anyways, this is happening.
So I'm feeling this whole thing going on in my body.
I'm literally losing breath.
I'm crying out for God to have mercy, but I'm thinking at this point, like, God heard me by now.
Like, either He forgives me or He doesn't.
So I'm kind of like, I started to give up because it was exhausting me.
It was physically, like, it was giving me, like, it was taking all my strength to speak, to say, God have mercy, forgive me.
I just felt the longer I was in his hand, the more life was getting pulled out of me.
And at one point I started to give up.
I said, you know what, Jesus, forgive me.
I made a big mistake.
I'm a sinner.
I believe in you for my salvation.
I said, I'm letting go.
I'm going to give up.
I'm done fighting this thing right now.
And so I started to relax.
And I started to, but I'm still going through turmoil.
But I started to think about, my wife was pregnant at the time.
I have another kid.
I started to think about that.
And I said, no, I can't.
I said, God, I said, you know what?
It's not about me.
I said, my kid needs me.
And so that hit me.
That was the next thing that happened was, oh, these people need me.
So I said, God, save me for them.
And so at that moment, I started to feel almost a slight pressure release.
And then I started to notice that at the top of the tower, I couldn't look at it.
I knew, you know, it's the glory of God was up there.
I couldn't go look at it.
I knew it was there.
But I could see the rest of the tower, and I could see that the source of that tower was at the top of it, that was giving life to the rest of it.
And all of a sudden, breath started coming.
I could see a little breath would hit me, and then I'd feel it hit me.
And then in that moment, I said, every breath that I get, he's literally giving it to me.
He's aware that he's giving it to me, consciously giving it to me.
And it was like I would get the breath, and I would make it last, because there was space in between.
It wasn't like I could just, how we could breathe now, just as freely as we want.
I couldn't breathe freely.
I was breathing according to him.
And it's a beautiful metaphor.
And of course, as we're speaking here, There's really no such thing as a metaphor or literal.
What we're saying is these two things intersect, the physical and the metaphysical, and that you say you couldn't breathe, and then God gives you that breath.
That is what the Holy Spirit is, right?
The bond of love between the Father and the Son, and this procession of Breath.
Yeah, Psalm 33, that's what it literally says.
It says he spoke everything into existence, and then it says his breath made man breathe, and gave the being the host.
I'm now witnessing this.
Received the Holy Spirit, Christ says, right?
Breathe something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow.
So now I'm sitting with that, but it's like I start to get hope, because I didn't have hope at that point.
I was just kind of just, I didn't know what to think.
I was just in pain and confusion, but also just discomfort.
So now I start to feel like maybe there's hope now.
So now the breath starts coming more fluidly, and I'm starting to kind of ease up.
Then all of a sudden, It was like this cloud of witnesses kind of came around, right?
And the Bible talks about that.
So these saints start coming out.
And I knew they were praying for me.
I just started to feel energy, love come from them.
And as they began to pray for me, I started to feel more alive.
And then all of a sudden, it was like a shadow of a cross came out, out the top of the tower.
It was like a cross came out.
And it was like the source at the top, his attention turned to it.
And it was this, because like I said, everything's telepathically and it's all connected.
You know what everything is kind of feeling and thinking in a sense.
So it's like I could feel God's attention turn to the cross and remember.
And then all of a sudden, I look over, and out of the tower, Jesus starts walking out.
I see this man come walking towards me, out into the center of this abyss.
He puts his arm around me.
He looks at everything, all the demons.
He puts his arm around me.
He said, this one's mine.
He belongs to me.
And as soon as he touched me, I went back to my body and began going through deliverance.
Because Jesus can't touch you, and so everything that I had just allowed into my life, I literally was puking.
I never had a painful vomit like that.
I was puking my guts out, filling up garbage bags, little shopping bags.
Which is common.
People, maybe not as intensely as what you're describing, but people always talk about this really spiritual experience of ayahuasca.
They all vomit a bunch.
You think, that doesn't seem so beautiful.
Even the beauty of that image, though, where Christ walks out and touches you, and you're back in the body.
It's an incarnational faith.
The pivot of history is the incarnation, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, into flesh.
He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and becomes man.
The fact that God, the Son, becomes man is this height, this perfection of the unity of physical and metaphysical.
The body actually does matter.
We actually are these things.
You see this in the sacraments that he gives us.
This bread is my body.
How do you make sense of it?
It only makes sense in an incarnational faith.
The second he touches you, Oh, yeah, there's the body again.
Oh, right.
Oh, there I am.
You gave me a piece of it.
Because the funny thing about this story is there's still so much that I'm still piecing.
Probably the rest of my life, I'll be piecing together parts of it.
And so I go through deliverance.
I collapse.
I puke my guts out.
I think it's over.
Because I collapse, I feel kind of that release of like, it's going to be OK.
And I collapse.
But now, when I collapse on the floor, I go back.
But this time, I'm in that tower.
And when I'm in the tower, now I'm in the light, I know the darkness is behind me, I'm looking at Jesus face to face, and it's like, you don't see everything else.
It's like everything else fades away like a cinematic, you know, on your iPhone.
All I could see was his eyes, and his eyes were like, almost like the earth.
Like, they were multiple colors.
It wasn't just like, oh, they were blue or brown.
It was like, there were shades of green, there were shades of blue.
It was just like, they magnetically pull you into him.
And then it also simultaneously pulls itself into you.
It's like this, like this.
So everything's just fading away and it's just, he's staring at my eyes.
He smiles at me.
So he's smiling at me as if he's happy to see me.
I'm thinking about what just happened, but he's looking at me as if he was happy to see me.
And he said, maybe we shouldn't do that again.
And he smiled at me like, I love you.
And so in that moment, It's like, what do you do with that?
In the moment, I'm receiving that, but I'm still stuck in what happened in the past.
You know, but I'm also now, scripture is flooding my mind.
I'm thinking about Psalm 73, for whom do I have in heaven, but besides you, who do I desire on earth?
Like, literally, Jesus is all we have in heaven.
Like, it's because of him.
It's him alone.
Like, we have nothing else on our side.
There's nothing else.
Like, he's it.
And so that's hitting me, like, oh, you're the one that came for me.
No one else.
There was no one else that could have came for me.
It was you.
The saints are praying for you, but He comes for you.
Yeah, but it's through Him.
So it was like, yeah, so that's all hitting me.
And so He starts walking with me, but I started to notice, because I'm looking around, and it wasn't like I was seeing everything as clear as I'm seeing this room.
It was almost like there was a sheet over it, so everything was kind of veiled, but I could see it.
So I could make out, oh, this is this kind of color.
Oh, there's a being there.
So I'm seeing light beings, kind of, and I'm seeing that there's stuff around, there's life around.
But I'm sensing that these angels or these saints, whatever they were, were kind of disappointed in me.
Not mad at me, but it was kind of just like, you knew better, Josh, kind of thing.
It wasn't a shaming way.
It was just like... It's just what it is.
It just is what it was.
It was just kind of like... That's wild.
I guess it shouldn't be wild that you describe it that way, because this is the scene in Dante's Divine Comedy, in Paradise, Something I'm always struck by when I, I love the poem, when Dante gets up to heaven, he has wonderful conversations with these people, one of his ancestors, saints, and the object of his love, well the ultimate object of his love is God, but he is sort of channeling it through this Beloved Beatrice.
And Beatrice sends Virgil down on this mission to, you know, go pull Dante out of his midlife crisis and the wayward way and pull him down through the pits of hell, up through purgatory, up into heaven.
But she's not Nice to him.
The first thing she says to him when she sees him at the end of purgatory going into heaven, she says, he's crying because Virgil goes away.
Virgil's a pagan, he can't go to heaven.
She says, stop crying.
Non piangere ancora.
Cut it out.
We've got to go.
She's fairly steely-faced.
She's looking at God.
And he can see in the reflection of her eyes.
That's how he's looking at her eyes, and he's seeing God reflected there.
But she's not saying, oh, hey, buddy, good to see you.
Oh, attaboy.
She's saying, no, reality is what reality is.
And I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you.
And that's what I think.
We get sometimes this idea that angels and heaven and Jesus is like this teddy bear.
They're serious.
Jesus is about his Father's business.
God's about his will being done.
So this isn't a game.
Why are we referred to as armies and sports players and soldiers?
Church militant.
Right.
And so that was very clear to me.
And so with that, I couldn't accept it.
Shame just hit me all of a sudden and I took off.
Where I was at, there was levels to it.
There was different dimensions of glory.
Where he brought me was a higher one.
I knew there was one or two above me.
And I knew there was at least three or four under me.
So when I looked down, I said, I'm going to the lowest part of heaven I can find.
As low as I can, I want to stay here.
Good strategy.
Good advice and good strategy.
Yeah.
So I took off.
I mean, like, you think it and you just travel.
You go.
You're there.
So next thing I know, I'm at the ground.
And I'm on my knees and I'm just worshiping.
I didn't want to look at anything.
I said, God, don't make me speak ever again.
I'm not worthy to speak.
I said, all I want to do is worship.
I said, just let me worship.
And so that was like the next thing that 100% hit me of, you're giving me this breath.
The only thing that I should do with it is give it back to you in a way that pleases you.
So it's like, I don't really want to just let me worship.
That's the only heart response to what's going on right now and realizing where I'm at.
I shouldn't be here.
But then Jesus came down and he comforted me.
It was like this moment of let it go.
You're here.
Embrace it.
So I started to send back with him.
And then it was like I switched.
I wasn't with him anymore.
I was in this, this almost this bubble of like, just like colors was like flying by me.
And it was like downloads were just flooding through me.
I felt like I was hooked up to a machine.
You see people like hooked up to those machines.
They're like, like, that's what it felt like.
I felt like I was hooked up to this machine.
And every question I had was just flooding through me.
To the point where I said, stop, you're gonna kill me.
It was like God's love and His wrath, His grace, and everything was all mixed in one almost.
It was like this, you're being too good to me.
I don't deserve it.
It was like everything I wanna know is coming to me.
Everything I could ever think about in my life and wanting to understand is coming to me.
I'm getting all this, it's just flooding me.
It's just hitting all simultaneously.
In a matter of minutes, it's like download, download, download, download.
Everything made sense.
And I literally was crying out to stop.
I said, stop showing me this.
Stop showing me this.
It's gonna kill me.
And the next thing I know, it started lightening up, and then I'm back in my body.
And it was just like, it's over.
But I didn't really want it to be over now, because now I'm like, it was like, alright.
Well, you see the same experience that you're describing when God's face passes by, in Genesis.
Don't look directly.
You will die if you look directly at the face of God.
You can look at the back of his head, but the sense that you'll be overwhelmed, because you're finite.
You can't comprehend God.
That's not going to work.
If he were totally comprehensible by you, he wouldn't be God, and you wouldn't be you.
It reminded me of when Paul said, there's things I've seen I can't tell you.
And I see through a veil half-darkly.
You're describing this veil, right?
It was too much for my natural body to contain.
And you know what, you reminded me of something when you were talking about Dante's Inferno.
And I haven't talked about this really yet, because I was baptized Russian Orthodox, which is, I think, very similar to Catholic faith.
And somebody asked me, they're like, have you heard of the Toll Houses?
And when I started looking into the Toll Houses, I was like, I really feel like that's what I experienced.
So I didn't get this until after, but it's similar to Purgatory.
You won't get out until you pay the very last farthing, that sort of thing?
That's kind of how it felt.
I mean, I don't know.
When I read about what toll houses are, I'm like, that's definitely what it seemed like I was going through.
That's definitely what it felt like.
Because there was a period of hell.
It was a form of hell, not the fullness of it.
Even the description that you have of the trial, We're all in trials.
Jesus is led by the Spirit into the desert to be tested into a trial.
Lead me not into a trial.
Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil.
So you come to.
Your wife is there.
Then what?
How does the story end?
I guess the story is still going on.
She's freaked out.
She doesn't really know what to think.
My wife didn't grow up in that world.
So she doesn't see this.
She's just taking my word for it to just calm down, relax, it's gonna be okay, pray, whatever.
So she's just kind of like, oh, I'm glad it's over.
I mean, what do you really say after that?
It's not like there was a significant reaction.
She was just freaked out.
She's like, that was scary.
And to this day, when this thing comes up, she's like, yeah, that was scary.
And she'll say that.
And then I laid in bed and I was scared to move.
You know, for the rest of the night I stayed awake saying, hallelujah, hallelujah.
You know, and for the next three days I didn't want to talk.
I was scared to talk.
I mean, that's what the fear of God will do.
I mean, the fear of God got so deeply drilled into me and not, I'm scared of God, the acknowledgement of His holiness.
Wonder and awe, right?
Servile fear is different than holy fear.
Exactly, and so that was the main takeaway from it.
Like, God really is that holy.
That ties into this whole, you're your own God, you're your own divine.
All my friends who have gotten sucked into this stuff, whether we're talking about chemical or just spiritual, or usually it's some kind of combination of the two, and it always seems to come down to You're your own God, and you can do whatever you want.
You've got the power, and you, you, you, you, you.
If it's about you, you, you, you, you, you're probably not on the right path, man.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that's the big difference to me, is that God wants to create with us, and Jesus is the center of everything.
These whole movements, they take everything that God intended for us to have, and not everything, but some things, and they just kick Jesus out of it.
And it reminds me of that parable where the guys said, I'm gonna send my helper to the vineyard to get my fruit.
They beat him up, beat him up, beat him up.
I'll send my son.
They said, oh, we'll kill him so we can inherit what belongs to him.
That's literally what Satan has done.
He's perverted everything that God has, took it for himself, and then made people afraid of certain things that God had created for people, and he kicked Jesus out of it.
So it's like, you know, everything's gotten perverted.
I love the image of the cross as the axle on which the world turns, on which the universe turns.
You know, that's just, that's where it all turns around.
And you can deny that, but if you deny that, you're going to find yourself increasingly incoherent.
And you can try to make a god of yourself.
That's the primal temptation in the Garden of Eden, is you shall be as gods.
But you're not going to end up as a god.
You're going to end up destroyed, physically and spiritually.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
It's not going to work out.
No, it's not.
It's not.
And that's that.
That's that story.
And that's that.
That's that, yeah.
That's that story, so.
Josh.
It's an amazing story.
I was going to say that's a hell of a story, but it's not.
A lot of it was a hell of a story, but it's got a happy ending.
Ends like a comedy.
Doesn't it all?
Doesn't it all have a happy ending?
I hope, for most of us.
But I think that's what I gather.
The happy ending might not be guaranteed.
We're just talking right now during Lent.
The Easter exclamation that people make is, oh, happy fault!
In the Garden of Eden, the fault of sin that destroyed perfection.
Oh, happy fault that won for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer.
That's what you say on Easter, because you say, oh, all right, look at that.
There was all this terrible stuff that happened, but God can turn that even for good.
And then we, all we have to do is cooperate with God's grace.
See, it should be this easy part.
Even time and time again, five overdoses, Yeah, that's what I was saying.
I know I'm just a vessel of mercy.
That's the point this has brought me to.
I know that I'm only here because of God and God alone.
I'm aware of that.
Now really the only thing I can do is try to just submit to His will and His grace as much as I can.
And stay in that lane.
Thank you for coming in, Josh.
Of course.
Thank you for having me.
Where can people find you?
So I have an Instagram, Joshua underscore Kingdom Priest.
And I have a TikTok, the same thing.
And I have a YouTube, just my name, Joshua Zatkoff.
