Taking Mushrooms for Depression Cured Me of My Atheism

Written by Ligare Board Member, Rachael Petersen

Psilocybin not only eased my depression, it showed me a new way to live.

I was 12 when I first swore off religion. My friends and I loitered outside a musky wooden confessional comparing penances assigned by our sour-breathed priest. One girl stole hoop earrings from Dillard’s: that meant 10 Hail Marys. A boy drank alcohol under the stadium bleachers: 50 Our Fathers. Somehow, I — an inveterate goody-two-shoes — received the heaviest sentence: 100 Hail Marys and 500 Our Fathers.

My sin? I doubted the existence of “God.”

This solidified my identity as a preteen apostate. Despite the overwhelming spiritual consensus within my small Texas town, I knew “God” didn’t exist.

Nothing shook this conviction until I participated in a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University last year in which I was given high doses of psilocybin — the psy…