Beyond The Veil: My Unexpected Awakening to Mysticism

Be open-minded, but careful.

Apr 02, 2025

Editor’s Note: This is the debut God of the Desert article by

, a journalism student in Nigeria featured in the December article “Take the Professor, Not the Coruse.” He is now going to begin contributions to GOTD. We look forward to his articles and welcome the perspectives of students from all around the world. -DMS

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I have always been curious.

Not the polite, socially acceptable kind of curiosity—the kind that asks a question, receives an answer, and moves on. No, mine was insatiable, clawing, restless. The kind that turns a child into an obsessive seeker, pulling at the edges of reality just to see if it might tear.

But curiosity, in the world I was raised in, had its limits.

I was born into Lutheran orthodoxy, where the rules were clear: some things were meant to be known, and some things were not. Mysticism? Forbidden. Hidden knowledge? Dangerous. Anything outside the church’s teachings—anything that smelled even remotely esoteric—was either satanic or unnecessary.

But how do you silence a hunger when you’ve never been fed?

The First Glimpse Behind the Curtain

I don’t remember the exact moment the forbidden began to call my name, but I do remember the feeling. That electric hum of discovering something you weren’t supposed to know.

It started with myths. Greco-Roman gods, whose stories were filled with lust and rage, pettiness and vengeance. They weren’t perfect, omnipotent beings—they were flawed, dramatic, almost human. Their existence alone challenged everything I had been told about divinity.

Then there were the whispers—conspiracy theories about pop stars, symbols hidden in plain sight, secret societies that supposedly controlled the world. Most of it was ridiculous, but it planted a seed: What if there really was something behind the veil?

And then, one day, I stumbled across Jewish mysticism.

It was unlike anything I had ever read before. Kabbalah spoke of hidden layers within scripture, divine structures woven into reality itself. It made me wonder: Had I only been reading the surface of things?

That was the turning point. That was when I began to chase the forbidden in earnest.

The Books They Told Us Not to Read

Sunday school gave me stories, but they always felt incomplete. Gaps. Holes in the narrative. I wanted to know more—not just what the Bible said, but what it meant.

Then came The Da Vinci Code. I know, I know. It’s fiction. But it was the first time I realized there were books the church didn’t want me to read. And if they didn’t want me to read them, I had to.

I found the Book of Jasher, and suddenly, Genesis made more sense. I found the Books of Enoch, and Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation unraveled before me like a forgotten map.

It was intoxicating. Like stepping into a world I had always known existed but had never been allowed to enter.

But knowledge comes with a cost.

The Fear That Keeps Us Away

Mysticism is not just an idea. It’s not just history or philosophy. It’s alive.

And I was warned.

The deeper I went, the more cautionary tales I found. Stories of people who had looked too far, searched too deep, and never truly returned. There was a line, they said, and if you crossed it, you might not like what you found.

I didn’t want to be reckless. But I couldn’t look away either.

And then came the night in boarding school.

The Night That Changed Everything

I was sick. My nostrils were completely blocked, leaving me to struggle for breath, my mouth dry and raw. I tried waking my roommates, but they slept unnaturally still, deaf to my panic.

I dragged myself out of the room, gasping, my head light with dizziness. I collapsed on the verandah, certain I was dying.

Then—something shifted. A flicker in the distance.

At first, I thought it was fireflies. But it wasn’t the season. The sparks in the grass glowed, pulsed, as if alive. Then, from that glowing patch of earth, a shadow rose. A figure with wings, vast and silent, passing over me like a phantom. I couldn’t see a body—only the darkness it left in its wake.

And suddenly, I could breathe.

I didn’t tell anyone. Who would believe me? But I knew, in that moment, that life was more than what we saw. That something had acknowledged me.

That night, my curiosity transformed into something else. It was no longer just about knowledge. It was about experience.

The Call of the Hidden

Some people search for mysticism in books. Others seek it in rituals, in secret gatherings, in whispered prayers beneath the moon.

For me, it has always been about the questions.

Moses spoke to God face-to-face and lived. How? What did he see?

Enoch walked with God until he was no more. What did he learn?

I respect mysticism, even when I don’t fully understand it. There are depths I am wary of exploring. But I know, without a doubt, that there is something waiting beyond the veil.

Something the church is afraid for us to see.

What Is Truly Forbidden?

I used to think that mysticism was forbidden by God. That some knowledge was too sacred, too dangerous.

Now, I think it was only forbidden by men.

Every faith has its hidden depths, its mysteries that linger at the edges of doctrine. But over time, we have chosen comfort over curiosity, tradition over revelation. We prefer what is shallow and apparent, because the unknown is unsettling.

But I can’t pretend not to see.

The allure of the forbidden is not just about rebellion. It’s about longing—for understanding, for meaning, for truth that cannot be contained within sermons and scripture alone.

And so, I continue searching.

Carefully. Respectfully.

With the quiet knowledge that some doors, once opened, can never be shut.