Can Psychedelics Save Religion? The Radical Vision That’s Shaking Up Faith and Tradition

When Pope Francis met with Brian Muraresku—an unexpected emissary from the psychedelic movement—at a Vatican meeting in late 2021 or early 2022, it marked a surprising intersection of ancient faith and modern psychedelics. Muraresku, a Jesuit-trained lawyer and author of the provocative The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, presented the pope with a manifesto arguing that psychedelics could spark a “New Reformation,” rescuing what he describes as a “dying faith” in Western civilization.

The question at the heart of Muraresku's bold vision: Can psychedelics reignite spirituality in a modern world where traditional religion is losing ground? It’s a radical idea that positions psychedelics not as mere substances but as sacred tools capable of awakening mysticism, reconnecting humanity to divine experience, and ultimately revitalizing the church itself.

At the core of Muraresku’s theory is his claim that Christianity’s origins are deeply entwined with pagan mystery cults whose sacred rituals involved the ingestion of psychedelic substances. He suggests that the kykeon—a hallucinogenic brew central to the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece—served as the prototype for the Holy Eucharist. In his view, early Christian sacraments incorporated these “pharmacological roots,” offering participants a direct mystical experience of the divine.

In The Immortality Key, Muraresku posits that modern religion’s spiritual malaise stems from abandoning this “sacred technology.” Without psychedelics, he argues, the mystical spark that once gave Christianity its transformative power has dimmed, contributing to what he calls a “spiritual crisis.”

Critics have lambasted the book as speculative and overstretched. Scholars question the evidence Muraresku presents, dismissing it as a rehash of old ideas wrapped in a thriller-style narrative. Yet the book’s resonance with a broader cultural movement cannot be denied—especially as psychedelic research re-enters the mainstream.

Muraresku’s ideas arrive amid a “psychedelic renaissance,” where substances like psilocybin and LSD are being studied for their therapeutic and spiritual benefits. Research led by institutions like Johns Hopkins University has shown that psychedelics can produce profound mystical experiences, often described as encounters with God or ultimate truth. For many, these experiences lead to lasting changes in outlook, behavior, and spirituality.

But the movement is not without controversy. Critics worry that some psychedelic researchers, including the late Roland Griffiths, infused their work with personal spiritual beliefs, leaning toward Perennialism—the idea that all religions share a universal mystical truth. This raises concerns about bias and the boundaries between science, spirituality, and faith.

Muraresku has embraced this overlap. He argues that psychedelics are key to recovering Christianity’s “lost” mystical core, capable of offering participants direct experiences of transcendence that traditional church rituals fail to deliver. He goes so far as to suggest that psychedelics could replace the New Testament—“outdated and impenetrable,” in his view—with a new sacred framework based on experiential mysticism.

While it’s unclear whether Pope Francis has read The Immortality Key, the Vatican’s recent interest in psychedelics is telling. In 2023, the Vatican hosted a conference on psychedelics and their potential applications, signaling a cautious openness to exploring their role in mental health and spirituality. Additionally, Francis himself stirred controversy in September when he stated, “Every religion is a way to arrive at God,” an idea not far removed from Perennialism.

Does this mark a softening of traditional dogma? Or is it simply curiosity about a cultural moment that is increasingly difficult to ignore? Either way, Muraresku’s encounter with the pope reflects a broader shift in the way psychedelics are perceived—not just as therapeutic tools but as catalysts for spiritual transformation.

For Muraresku and his followers, psychedelics represent more than a return to ancient practices—they’re a solution to the existential void of modern life. He predicts that by 2030, widespread psychedelic use will permanently transform how people experience spirituality, ushering in a new era of mysticism that could “make life livable on this planet.”

Skeptics remain unconvinced. Critics argue that Muraresku’s vision is little more than a romanticized fantasy, built on shaky historical claims and the allure of psychedelic mysticism. Others worry that reducing spiritual transformation to pharmacology oversimplifies the complexity of faith and human experience.

Still, the cultural appetite for Muraresku’s ideas—alongside the resurgence of psychedelics—suggests that many people are searching for something beyond traditional religion. Whether that “something” lies in a sacred mushroom or within the rituals of ancient faith is yet to be seen.

As psychedelics gain mainstream acceptance, their potential to reshape spirituality and religious experience grows harder to ignore. Brian Muraresku’s vision of a “New Reformation” may seem audacious, but it taps into a profound cultural longing for connection, meaning, and transcendence. Whether psychedelics can truly save faith—or whether they’ll simply disrupt it—remains one of the most fascinating and controversial questions of our time.

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