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Goodbye Jesus

Mystical Experiences


zuker12

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After you left christianity, have you had any other mystical/spiritual experiences? After changing your faith, have you had spiritual experiences or something that seemed supernatural or especial at the time?

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At a Mind-Body-Spirit expo, I listened to a psychic and had a guided visualization with the others in the room. She had us visualize a tree, walking up to it, and looking around. Then she had each of us describe the scene.

 

Mine was a very old weeping willow in an early morning summer day, with a field or lawn, creek running nearby that I could hear but not see, I was sitting at the base of the tree in my cutoffs and t-shirt. She says that this means I'm a healer (the willow is historically associated with that) with many past lives, that I have latent psychic ability (indicated by the creek), and am comfortable with where I am.

 

From there I caught the end of a talk by another psychic who also then led her folks in a guided meditation. We were told to follow our spirit guide, go into a room with a table and look at a box there. Opening the box, I saw several books, and felt that these were books I would write, probably dealing with deconverting. She then said to look up and see the face of the guide. I was surprised to see an Egyptian woman with classic white form-fitting dress, beads in her black hair, and a lion-like face with a Mona Lisa wry smile. I've never gravitated towards Egyptian stuff, so I didn't know who it was, but I was intrigued. Later I was wandering around the various vendors and saw a statue of this woman. I was told that she is Sekhmet, a powerful goddess, protector of the Pharaoh, sort of like Kali in the Hindu faith, savage and unstoppable in battle. I figure it is funny to have an Egyptian goddess help me defeat the god of the Bible. I have had her come up in variant tarot readings from other people. I have written one book so far, and desperately need to take time to edit it or even re-write it, and get it out on Amazon.

 

That is about it for mystical experiences since deconverting. Had a few when I was a believer that really sealed the apparent reality of my faith at the time, so not sure what to make of those at this point, now that I know that god is not real.

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After you left christianity, have you had any other mystical/spiritual experiences? After changing your faith, have you had spiritual experiences or something that seemed supernatural or especial at the time?

Of course, I do every day to one degree or another. But you should be careful what you mean by "mystical experiences". I consider mystical experience to be an immersion in the subtle and casual and nondual experience of reality. A certain deeper, more open, more expansive, more aware, more awakened state of consciousness which radically alters and informs ones normal assumptions of what is "real" and improves ones quality of lived experience altogether as a result.

 

These mystical states are opened to more easily and frequently through meditative practices. I don't consider them supernatural in the sense they are from some external realm "up there" of spirit people and whatnot, but rather as what and who we and everyone and everything actually is, or rather is a part of who and what everything and everyone is that we simply are blinded to as we live with our eyes fixed on ourselves in our small little worlds. Mystical experience is simply put, opening our eyes.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.

 

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies

 

 

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Supernatural?

 

Nothing that is incapable of explanation, if only as a coincidence.

 

The main incident that comes to mind is a fairly specific apparently pre-cognitive dream concerning the imminent demise of my mother's oven...  It was quite bizarre.

 

Mind, I have real issues over the word "supernatural".  To my mind, things may happen that are strange.  Nothing, however, that occurs within this universe can be anything other than "natural", whether or not explicable according to current understanding.

 

Mysticism, as Antlerman says, is not the same as inexplicable.  I don't find meditation easy, but it does offer a way into an appreciation (or at least, a subjective impression of appreciation) of reality and our place within it.

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I was quite the mystic when I was Xtain, really into the union with the godhead, and had several experiences, that looking back, didn't have a whole lot to do with the God of the Bible. They were really about feeling perfect love, understanding, and perspective. After deconverting I've taken quite a while to realize that that same experience is still available to me, but I interpret it differently. Sometimes more pantheistically, sometimes more like a peak brain chemistry experience that is spiritually valuable. Is the experience gone? No, just reinterpreted.

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I was quite the mystic when I was Xtain, really into the union with the godhead, and had several experiences, that looking back, didn't have a whole lot to do with the God of the Bible. They were really about feeling perfect love, understanding, and perspective. After deconverting I've taken quite a while to realize that that same experience is still available to me, but I interpret it differently. Sometimes more pantheistically, sometimes more like a peak brain chemistry experience that is spiritually valuable. Is the experience gone? No, just reinterpreted.

I like what you say here. I just a day ago came across this quote in something I was reading I think you may enjoy. "A mystic is not one who sees God as an object, but is immersed in God as an atmosphere". ~Ken Wilber.

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I was quite the mystic when I was Xtain, really into the union with the godhead, and had several experiences, that looking back, didn't have a whole lot to do with the God of the Bible. They were really about feeling perfect love, understanding, and perspective. After deconverting I've taken quite a while to realize that that same experience is still available to me, but I interpret it differently. Sometimes more pantheistically, sometimes more like a peak brain chemistry experience that is spiritually valuable. Is the experience gone? No, just reinterpreted.

I like what you say here. I just a day ago came across this quote in something I was reading I think you may enjoy. "A mystic is not one who sees God as an object, but is immersed in God as an atmosphere". ~Ken Wilber.

 

I love that quote! The source interests me--is it from a book, or just a quote? It really does sum it up...

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I was quite the mystic when I was Xtain, really into the union with the godhead, and had several experiences, that looking back, didn't have a whole lot to do with the God of the Bible. They were really about feeling perfect love, understanding, and perspective. After deconverting I've taken quite a while to realize that that same experience is still available to me, but I interpret it differently. Sometimes more pantheistically, sometimes more like a peak brain chemistry experience that is spiritually valuable. Is the experience gone? No, just reinterpreted.

I like what you say here. I just a day ago came across this quote in something I was reading I think you may enjoy. "A mystic is not one who sees God as an object, but is immersed in God as an atmosphere". ~Ken Wilber.

 

I love that quote! The source interests me--is it from a book, or just a quote? It really does sum it up...

 

That's from a book which is a compilation of personal journal entries from the philosopher Ken Wilber in a book called One Taste.  I've read a lot of Wilber's work, which is largely theoretical models of Eastern and Western philosophies, science and mysticism, etc.  Quite important work actually, but this book is one a friend had he loaned me and is different from the other work as it's his private journal entries, which are still academic as well of course.  If I were to recommend a first book for someone to read of his, I'd say start with A Sociable God.  It's packed with good insights, and is easier to approach than some of his other work until you get the foundation of his terminology.  

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