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This is not a story meant to persuade anyone toward psychedelics or any particular spiritual path. It is a reflection on how lived experience, critical inquiry, and embodied practice have shaped how I show up today—as a therapist, guide, and fellow human.

My Journey as an Ex-vangelical

In 2011, I left my hometown, Shanghai, and landed in Canada with my parents. We hoped for a new beginning—a better life. We moved in with my half-brother’s family, which was not easy. I didn’t speak English well, making it hard to make friends at school. My parents constantly argued and fought. I felt deeply depressed and profoundly lonely.

Randomly—or some may say through divine guidance—I attended a workshop about education at a large Chinese church. Through that, I was introduced to their youth fellowship. The church felt wholesome and warm. We sang together, shared meals, read the Bible, and did social activities. It felt like a home away from home. My heart softened. It felt like a ship finding a beacon in the middle of a stormy sea.

Through the fellowship, I encountered the message of Jesus.

At first, I was skeptical of religion. I plunged into research—near-death experiences, chanelling, spiritual phenomena, the history of the Bible, and so on. Over time, I became convinced that there are levels of reality beyond what we can perceive with our five senses. I wanted to understand that unseen world more deeply.

I had always been a bit philosophical. I vividly remember being a child—around eight to ten years old—playing alone in the yard and contemplating bending dimensions and how higher dimensions might perceive lower ones. One of my most memorable mystical experiences happened during a children’s event. There was a prize draw. Right before they announced the first prize, I suddenly had a powerful premonition—I knew I was going to be picked. The world zoomed in. Everything became still and intensely focused. And then my name was called. Looking back, I recognize that something like an altered state of consciousness was happening. There was clearly more to reality than what our senses alone can capture.

Over the next two years, I became a fervent evangelical Christian. I read devotions, prayed daily, sang worship songs, and attended trainings and conferences. I was on a leadership track and felt called to become a pastor. I even raised my hand to answer the call at a gospel event. I remember being moved to tears at a gospel theatre performance while singing the Chinese song “Precious Cross.” Something in the gospel touched me deeply. I wanted the whole world to experience it.

Later, after two years of feeling unmotivated and blocked in Nanotechnology Engineering at University of Waterloo, I switched to study Psychology. I became the chair of the Mandarin Christian Fellowship, and many people looked up to me. I took biblical Greek. I did mission trips. I was full on ready to be a minister. 

Yet I had always been a critical thinker. I analyzed sermons, questioned theology, and reflected deeply on issues many avoided—such as LGBTQ+ inclusion and God being gender neutral. I voiced controversial opinions, even at the cost of offending people. Looking back, this may have been part of my neurodivergent traits.

The breaking point came when my Chinese church in Waterloo became Islamophobic during debates about building a mosque in an area with many Chinese residents. I began researching progressive, love-centered Christian perspectives and realized something disturbing: how could both sides claim fidelity to the Bible yet arrive at such radically different moral conclusions? What is the truth? I felt ashamed of the hatred and judgmentalness in the conservative church, and I left.

For the next year, I church-hopped, searching for a spiritual home, but I never found a place where I truly belonged. I felt lost.

Around that time, I began my master’s training in psychotherapy at a progressive Lutheran seminary. It beautifully integrated my interests in psychology and theology. What truly opened my eyes was a Survey of the New Testament course, where we examined the Bible through historical and textual criticism. I realized the Bible was far from inerrant, contrary to conservative claims.

I began exploring other spiritual traditions—Buddhism, Hinduism, A Course in Miracles. I attended Buddhist retreats. This exploration came with some shame. I felt like a traitor, as if I had fallen into heresy. Yet I reasoned that if God is loving, big-hearted, and truth-affirming, then God would not be offended by sincere exploration. I cannot blindly follow. I must investigate. I trusted that truth itself would guide me.

As I deconstructed, my old Christian friends slowly drifted away. I also distanced myself from conservative churches. To this day, the loss of that community still hurts deeply. I have yet to fully rebuild that sense of belonging. 

Encountering Sacred Medicine

At the start of COVID, I met my romantic partner. Through her friends, I tried cannabis for the first time. After a few puffs, I became intensely high. I vomited my instant noodle dinner, then lay in a tent watching cartoon movies play in my mind, surrounded by geometric patterns. It was my first encounter with altered states of consciousness.

I remained cautious about substances. In Chinese culture, drugs are considered evil—using drugs is almost an ancestral betrayal because of drugs' history with colonization in China. Still, some friends mentioned mushrooms a couple of times. Around that time, I encountered How to Change Your Mind. The research in the book fascinated me. By then, I was already working as a psychotherapist. I decided to try psilocybin mushrooms. I had my first psilocybin experience in Dundas Ontario—2.2 grams of Blue Meanie mushroom, with my girlfriend sitting for me. 

I felt connected to everything and everyone across time. I saw symbols of death. I felt God’s presence. Childhood memories and long-gone relatives surfaced. It felt like ten years of therapy compressed into one experience. I immediately knew this was profoundly therapeutic and spiritual—far beyond conventional talk therapy.

I had two more profound journeys and felt called to help others access these healing states. I enrolled in a one-year training with the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, after which I began trip-sitting with supervision from an elder in the field. (Now, looking back after serving over 150 clients, I recognize that I was leaning toward the edge of risk. Ideally, this work requires long-term apprenticeship and mentorship over many years. But it was COVID, and access to guidance was limited. I developed my own approach and revised it over the years. )

So far I’ve experienced around 50 personal journeys done therapeutically and a dozen recreational experiences. These experiences propelled me into a full deconstruction and reconsturction of my faith. They taught me what God’s presence feels like, how to meditate, how to pray, how to work with energy. They helped me make sense of scripture and theological points from a mystical lens. I spoke in tongues (some call that light language), saw spiritual visions, channelled and chanted. 

Not only did psychedelics transform my limiting beliefs, they have also opened up my body and my heart. At the core, it’s deep somatic therapy. Suppressed emotions surfaced and released. I cried like never before. I felt the most extreme pain in the world and throughout human history. I resonated with my clients on a deep level, which has deeply helped me with my therapy work. I roared out my anger and pounced on the ground like a primal animal. My nervous system felt like it had gone through some deep energetic power wash after each journey. 

Psychedelics also reshaped my views on relationships and sexuality. After five years as a couples therapist, I had witnessed the shadow side of rigid monogamy. I began learning about alternative relationship structures and sexual practices. I started practicing tantra. 

One surprising bonus is that psychedelics taught me how to move, unintentionally. Years of disembodiment—rooted in the Chinese education system and generations of collective trauma—had left my body rigid. Two years ago, I had an MDMA experience in a techno club (an interest place for both hedonism and awakening). I had previously worked with MDMA therapeutically in stillness, but this context was different. Supported by rhythm, music, and a sense of safety, my body began to move effortlessly. It wasn’t dancing—it was flow. Zero rigidity. Pure embodiment. Electronic music suddenlyed made sense! From there, I began attending ecstatic dance, Five Rhythms, and raves. I further connected with my body and music through these practices. Dancing became a second nature, like I never dreamed of. My body softened—shifting from rigid, sharp movements into fluid, graceful, feminine flow.

Since 2022, the universe has added two little humans into my life. Psychedelics have continuously reshaped how I show up as a parent—less reactive, more present, and more attuned to the emotional worlds of my children. 

Psychedelics ≠ Spiritual Path 

You might ask: Do we just keep doing psychedelics forever? When does it end?

It’s an important question. As Ram Dass said, psychedelics are a tool—not the path. The path is spiritual practice: yoga, meditation, tantra, study, therapy, mentorship, friendship, community building, relationships, creativity, travelling. All of life is spiritual practice.

I still experience depression at times. Psychedelics did not magically cure me or turn me into an awakened guru. But they nudged me forward—like a speed boost in Mario Kart. Ultimately, it’s about how we use our consciousness and how we connect with God. Psychedelics, like religions and spiritual practices, are teachers and pointers—not God itself. 

After 15 years of spiritual quest, I have now landed at the intersection of yoga-meditation-tantra, Jesus's teachings, new-age spirituality (mostly channelled materials), transpersonal psychology, somatic psychology, and psychedelics. My goal is to rely increasingly on embodied practices like yoga/tantra to cleanse my energy system and to eventually connect with higher frequencies without chemical assistance.

Christian teachings are still dear to my heart, even though I no longer identify as Christian in the traditional sense. I still listen to worship music at times, and it can move me to tears. I’m often touched when I witness clients who are Christian deeply experiencing God’s love and presence in their journeys. And I can’t help but smile when I see Christian friends exploring Buddhism, and Buddhist friends finding their way toward Christianity—the Universe clearly has a playful sense of humour.

Over the past few years, the absence of a psychedelic-friendly community was a deep pain point for me. I often felt alone—and I saw the same loneliness reflected in my clients, many of whom had no one in their lives with whom they could safely share or integrate such profound experiences. In 2024, I felt a clear calling to help change that. I founded the Hamilton Conscious Collective to cultivate a psychedelic-friendly spiritual community focused on offering embodied, transformative experiences. It has steadily grown, giving rise to many beautiful connections and shared events. Our society needs more and more local communities like this. 

In 2026, I will begin a yoga teacher training and dip my toes in sound healing. I’m in the midst of a career focus shift—calling in more teamwork, abundance and creativity. It will be a year of transformation. 

I encourage you to choose a spiritual path and practice it daily. Small, faithful practices shape consciousness just as profoundly as peak experiences. Beneath the noise of the ego-mind is a quieter presence—what mystics have called the ground of being. When we rest there, striving softens into the ease of non-doing, Wu Wei. Life begins to reveal itself as not merely about “me,” but as participation in something far greater. 

Published on 2026.1.1