Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality · Forrest Inslee

Psychedelics, Nature, and Spiritual Transformation, with Ron Cole-Turner | Ep. 135

·40 min·2 clips

Ron says psychedelic spiritual intensity appears to predict mental-health benefit, raising a debate about whether spirituality becomes “a utilitarian crutch.”

1. Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality, Episode 135, centers on psychedelics, nature, and spiritual transformation with Ron Cole-Turner. 2. Ron Cole-Turner is a theologian and the author of Psychedelics and Christian Faith, and Forrest Inslee hosts the conversation for the Earthkeepers audience. 3. The episode asks what psychedelics reveal about experience, Christian faith, and the church’s response to people seeking healing and spiritual meaning. 4. Ron says he spent 25 years teaching at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, working with United Methodist, Presbyterian, and other mainline Protestant students. 5. He describes being shaped by Reformed theology, Karl Barth, and advanced exegesis, which he says marginalized mystical and experiential Christianity. 6. Ron says research on psychedelics forced him to revisit questions about “the place of experience,” “the place of encounter with the divine,” and “the place of loving God.” 7. He argues that Christianity has a spiritual core beneath “institutionalization, intellectualization, dogmatism,” and church bureaucracy. 8. Ron defines psychedelics as substances that alter perception and names psilocybin, mescaline, ibogaine, ayahuasca, LSD, ketamine, cannabis, and MDMA. 9. He notes that some of these are naturally occurring plant medicines, while LSD is a synthesized example and ketamine is legal in the United States. 10. Ron repeatedly warns that these substances are powerful, illegal under federal law, and not medical advice or professional guidance. 11. He says recent research suggests psychedelics can bring mental-health benefits and intensely meaningful spiritual experiences. 12. Ron says people often report increased connection to other people, the brain, the natural world, and “all its creatures.” 13. He connects psychedelic experience to a challenge against the modern Western view of nature as raw material for extraction and exploitation. 14. Ron cites the early-1960s Marsh Chapel experiment and a 2006 Johns Hopkins study with the title, “Psilocybin can occasion mystical type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance.” 15. He also mentions a 2025 study of religious professionals, mostly Christian, in which 96% later rated the psychedelic experience among their top five spiritual experiences. 16. Ron says the more intense the spiritual experience, the more likely the mental-health benefit, while asking whether spirituality becomes too utilitarian. 17. He discusses the Native American Church, Supreme Court protection, and the importance of community, elders, and cultural context in indigenous practice. 18. Ron warns about appropriation, urging humility, deep listening, and attention to Western Christianity’s own neglected resources. 19. The episode moves in an interview style with direct questions about research, clergy, addiction, church renewal, and Ron’s own theological concerns. 20. Listeners interested in psychedelics, Christian theology, and earth care will likely find it useful; listeners wanting a nonreligious drug overview may skip it.

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