Revelation and Return: Religious Professionals Share Their Stories From the Hopkins Trial

Tuesday, September 16, 2025
9:00 AM PT | 12:00 PM ET | 5:00 PM UK - 90 Minutes

The NYU–Johns Hopkins Religious Professionals Study explored the effects of psilocybin on clergy from diverse faith backgrounds, including rabbis, ministers, and imams. Participants reported profound spiritual experiences, with many saying the sessions deepened their sense of vocation and connection to the divine. It has become a landmark in understanding how psychedelics might intersect with spiritual leadership and religious life. Since the study’s results were released just a few months ago, it has received significant coverage in the media. After Michael Pollan’s New Yorker piece, and Jay Michaelson’s beautiful response, there are still more stories to tell. 

On Tuesday, September 16th join us on Zoom for Revelation and Return: Religious Professionals Share Their Stories From the Hopkins Trial. You'll hear from Rev. Dr. Seth Jones, a pastor and scholar of extraordinary spiritual experience; Sughra Ahmed, a faith leader and educator committed to interreligious dialogue; and Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles, a professor of New Testament passionate about spiritual formation. Moderated by Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, this event offers a rare window into how psilocybin and the groundbreaking study from John’s Hopkins and NYU impacted their spiritual lives and trajectories. 

This session will be recorded and available on our Youtube Channel + Podcast.

This event is a collaboration between Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Support, Ligare: A Christian Psychedelic Society, and Ruhani, an organization focused on the intersections of Islam, Muslim cultures, and psychedelics.

About the Speakers

Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles is Professor of New Testament and Altshuler Distinguished teaching Professor at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. She also serves as the Director of the Baptist House of Studies at Perkins. She received her B.A. from Stetson University focusing on both Philosophy and Russian Studies. She earned her M.Div. from Yale Divinity School and her Ph.D. in New Testament from Yale University.

She has written numerous essays and six books. Her most recent books are “Reading John for Dear Life: A Spiritual Walk with the Fourth Gospel”, “Women in the Bible”, and “1 Corinthians: Searching the Depths of God.” She is currently working on two more: “Psychedelics and Soul Care: What Christians Need to Know” (under contract with Eerdmans) and “The Agony, the Ecstasy, and the Ordinary: Experiencing God in the New Testament.”

Dr. Clark-Soles serves as a Field Scholar for the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality and is an active member of the Transforming Chaplaincy Psychedelic Care Network. She is certified in Psychedelic Assisted Therapies and Research through the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). As an ordained American Baptist minister, she has served in both congregational and hospice settings. She is a Navy brat and enjoys travel and triathlons. For more information, visit her website at jaimeclarksoles.com.

Sughra Ahmed’s expertise lies in religion, plant medicines and Muslim cultures. Working in a range of spiritual and religious capacities, Sughra has spent time in the UK and USA exploring contextual theology, religious expressions and plant medicines across communities of faith and belief. As Associate Dean for Religious Life, at Stanford University her role included preaching, research and pastoral care with a focus on person centred care of staff and students. 

She leads a digital Muslim psychedelic network, is a public speaker and enjoys discovering connections between Islam and plant medicines. 

She has an MA in Islamic Studies, Diploma in Islamic Jurisprudence and is a Chaplain.

www.ruhanispirit.org

Rev. Dr. Seth Jones is an ordained minister, writer, and spiritual scholar whose work explores the intersection of beauty, mysticism, and extraordinary spiritual experiences. With a Doctorate of Ministry in Semiotics, Church, and Culture from Portland Seminary, his career has spanned ministry, finance, and communal living—reflecting a lifelong commitment to reinvention and spiritual inquiry. He has served diverse church communities from Yellowstone National Park to coastal Maine, and is currently based in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he works as a Spiritual and Grief Counselor for a hospice organization and is completing a book on the meaning-making of peak experiences. Seth is passionate about preserving beauty and spiritual depth in a rapidly changing world.

Our moderator, Rabbi Zac Kamenetz is a rabbi and community leader based in Berkeley, CA. As the founder and CEO of Shefa, Zac is leading a movement to integrate safe and supported psychedelic use into the Jewish spiritual tradition, advocating for the healing of individual and inherited traumas, and inspiring a Jewish religious and creative renaissance in the 21st century. He is a qualified instructor ofMBSR and is trained in ketamine-assisted care through Inbodied Life. Zac is certified in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy by the Hakomi Institute of Northern California