Drug bust started joint search for God

In an improbable twist of providence, a drug bust set the stage for Joe and Nancy Severson’s spiritual awakening – a story of romance, mysticism, and ultimate conversion that reads like a modern parable.

Their testimony, recently shared with God Reports, reveals how God can work even through chaos.

It all began in Southern California when Nancy, then hitchhiking from Santa Barbara to Orange County with her sister, turned up at a friend’s house. “We went to visit some old friends, and Joe was living in a separate little studio in the back,” she recounted. “We were all in the living room smoking pot, and there were pot plants on the windowsills … then right when we were all enjoying dinner, the police came in and busted the whole group.”

Joe, who lived in a separate section of the property, escaped arrest – “they didn’t find drugs … when he went to get in the car, they said, ‘No, you don’t have to go.’” Only Nancy and Joe remained. “We had fallen in love that night … we just locked eyes, and it was one of those ‘wow, aha moments.’”

Drawn by shared spiritual longing, the couple took jobs at Mystic Arts World in Laguna Beach, a counterculture emporium selling psychedelic art, health food, drug paraphernalia and more. Joe worked in the books; Nancy in clothing. “We were searching for God. We had been meditating. We went to see the Maharishi that the Beatles were into.”

Later, they moved to Hawaii and spent time meditating before a poster of Meher Baba – the silent mystic claimed to unlock the universe. But after Meher Baba’s death on 31 January 1969 without breaking his silence, disillusionment followed. “He died and nothing happened,” Nancy said.

story continues …