We Agnostics

On conversion, mysticism and C.S. Lewis…

Part I: White Light

I grew up attending church every Sunday. It wasn’t something I ever thought about — it was as natural as eating or sleeping. I sang in the school choir, became an altar boy and prayed to the invisible, gray-bearded man in the sky. That’s what I was taught, and that’s what was expected of me. I remember so vividly my desire to be “good and holy,” accompanied by a pulsating fear of failure. After all, if I sinned, I was going to burn in Hell for eternity. Quite high stakes for a young boy who could barely discern his left from his right.

As I grew, I started to notice…inconsistencies. The people who claimed to be the most spiritually enlightened — “the chosen,” if you will — engaged in the most brutal practices. In the lay community, there was cheating, adultery, swindling, lying — all swept under the rug with a Sunday smile. The priests were even worse. I don’t have to tell you about the child rape and molestation, the covering-up and the lies that went along with it. It seemed to me that the faith I had grown up on was nothing more than a false flag for perverts and narcissists.

It was around this time that I also found women and alcohol. I would use these to replace the God of old. Religion was dead to me, and the only thing that seemed to matter was pleasure — it was the only thing that made me feel good about myself and the only thing that gave me validation. I had no idea that this would be the beginning of the path towards extreme nihilism, materialism and oblivion. As the years progressed and the veil was pierced concerning the blasphemous and hypocritical ways of religious men, I drifted further and further away from my original naivety and innocence. With help from the world of science, I became convinced that the spiritual world was the greatest lie ever told by mankind — that heaven and hell were nothing more than the fairy tales we told ourselves to lessen the blow of death. Nothing mattered, there was no purpose — I might as well fuck and drink myself straight to the grave.

That said, I at least had the wherewithal to accept that the question of God was well beyond my scope. I conceded to agnosticism, leaning more and more towards atheism as I spiraled further down the rabbit hole of addiction. At the rate I was going, I would have been dead before my 30th birthday. After all, what did it matter if I was alive or dead? There was no plan, no purpose, no instructions. I saw evil winning all round me, and I wanted out.

Then one day, everything changed.

My grandmother had come to my house with a large bin of books, mostly classics. I fancied myself a reader, although at the time my experience did not quite justify that title. I rummaged through her collection, and one volume particularly struck my attention. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I thought C.S. Lewis was the guy who wrote children’s books? I fondly remembered my experience reading The Chronicles of Narnia in my youth, so I picked the book up and placed it in my backpack. I didn’t have any intention of reading it at the time — I wanted nothing to do with Christianity — but for some reason I took it. Later that day, I boarded a train into Manhattan. That train ride would save my life.

I remember feeling bored, and I must have had a few tall-boys of Bud Light — at that time, I didn’t take a train ride without them. I took out the book and started reading it. To my surprise, the words on the page made sense. I didn’t know that Lewis was one of the premiere apologists of the 20th century, but this soon became very clear to me. At some point in my reading, I had a thought:

What if I’m wrong?

What if I didn’t know everything? Who was I to say that God and the spirit world didn’t exist?What if the affairs of the heavens were much larger than science or sin or men? This may not seem like an earth-shattering idea, but at the time it catapulted me into the fourth dimension. I was so set in my ways and so convinced of a meaningless world that this thought bloomed inside me like a newborn’s first breath. All of a sudden, the lights on the train grew blindingly bright and I experienced violent, blissful chills throughout my entire body. I have to imagine this is what people mean when they talk about “white light” experiences. For the first time in ten years, I experienced freedom from my own ego.

That was the first miracle. The second would be even more astounding. Within a month of that experience, I got sober. One day I was hopelessly addicted to alcohol and drugs, and the next I was completely free of the obsession. There is no human power that can explain that phenomenon. If you’re an addict, you know what I mean. Through a gift that I can only attribute the to the divine, I found a spiritual program made for people like me. Without it, I wouldn’t be writing this — I’d be ass-up in a ditch somewhere, most likely dead.

The biggest gift (one of many) of this program was a completely new understanding of God. He didn’t have to be the invisible, gray-bearded man in the sky. He didn’t have to be anything. He could be whatever I determined Him to be, as long as I could admit He was a power greater than myself. After my experience with C.S. Lewis on the train, I was more than willing to do this. With a sober mind and body, I thus began the real journey — the one back to faith.

Part 2: Gnosis

In those early days, I experimented with many different avenues of spirituality— everything you could think of. I read every book C.S. Lewis ever wrote, and spent a year in complete awe. I studied Daoism, Buddhism, Dark Magic, The Occult, New Thought and everything in between. I even went back to my old faith and read at a Catholic church for a year. Eventually, my path led me to Christian Mysticism and Gnosticism (yes, it is different than Agnosticism), and my mind was expanded in ways I am still trying to unpack. In these I found a combination of everything — Eastern and Western philosophy, mythology, magic, mysticism and classical religion.

The Mystics and Gnostics were killed off and excommunicated by the Catholic Church in the first centuries of the previous millennium, so chances are you haven’t been exposed to much of their teachings. They believed in “gnosis” — personal knowledge of God through experience. Their belief was that God was accessible by each individual in their own unique way. Sounds a lot like the spiritual program that got me sober, doesn’t it? The ancient texts that survived are beautiful, mystical masterpieces that make it hard to believe they were written so long ago.

So, why does this matter? As a sober man it is my responsibility to help others who have struggled like I once did — both in body and in mind. I have been given a unique perspective on things, and I see so much suffering around me, in addicts and non-addicts alike. We live in a time unlike any other, and we are constantly bombarded with the same nihilistic and materialistic messaging that led me to my rock-bottom. Our culture pressures us to always want more — more money, more power, more sex, more pleasure, more everything. Contrary to what others might say, I believe the fallout from this is massive. We are all a part of a cultural experiment we don’t fully understand, and it’s taking a toll on our humanity. Everyone and their mother is on anti-depression meds, we’re addicted to porn and TikTok, and we’ve lost our sense of common morality. As a result, we are increasingly at a war with ourselves and with others. This is where gnosis comes in.

Religion is dead, and so are the churches. The children of the technological age are not going going back to the ways of old, no mater how much the old guard wants to reminisce on the glory days. The Way to life, love and happiness will not be from the pews, but from the hearts of each and every one of us. If we don’t find ways to individually connect with our higher selves, we’ll eat ourselves alive. To quote the Jesuit theologian Karl Rainer:

The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist.

I call myself a Christian, among many other things, but this quote applies well beyond Christianity. With so many spiritual lineages at our instant disposal, we all have the opportunity to become mystics. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting to know oneself and facing one’s own darkness — one’s own shadow. We spend our days in distraction, be it on our phones or in stranger’s beds, and we’ve mastered the art of avoidance. For some of us, this leads to the depth of addiction. For others, it leads simply to despair. You know that subtle voice in the back of your mind that’s always telling you that you’re broken and that everything is wrong? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Unresolved pain only breeds more pain.

Part 3: Stop The Waves

Gnosis is the process of self discovery, of facing our own pain in order to bring light into this world. I won’t pretend to have all of the answers, because my answers are not your answers. I am simply living proof that miracles are possible, and I am here to tell you with complete conviction that there is more beyond our experience of the materialistic world. I invite you to allow your spirituality to grow in any way you fancy and to follow the spark of curiosity within you. If you have a problem with the God question, I challenge you to take a trip out to the ocean and try to stop the waves. I’ll bet my life’s savings that you won’t be able to do it. There are powers in this world that are much greater than ourselves and our egos; it’s only through these that we’ll be able to find peace and love within ourselves and with our fellow brothers and sisters.

What I hope to offer you is hope itself. Hope that there’s more to life than sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. Hope that’s there’s a greater joy than any external pleasure can offer you. Hope that peace, love and tranquility are indeed possible in a world filled with chaos and brutality.

C.S. Lewis was perhaps the greatest apologist in the history of modern Christianity, and I can only aspire to be half of what he was. The message now isn’t to return to the ways of old, but to find God and the Christ within you — whatever you determine that to be. Face the darkness that lurks in the shadow of your heart — only then can you spread your light into this world. I’ll leave you with a quote from Lewis himself:

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

-D.O.