Drilldown #1: TBMs, details re your spiritual experience

[_Yoda]

Liz,

When your father called to tell you about your grandmother, did you tell him about your interaction with your grandmother? If so, what was his response? If not, why?

Thanks,
Mad

Yes, I did tell him.

It was a source of comfort for him.

[_Fifth Columnist]

Another team tried to replicate the experiment but didn't get the same result. They say the entire result is explained by the participants' susceptibility to suggestion, not their susceptibility to electrical fields.

Is any of this related to the God Helmet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet

Interestingly, I also recall reading a study about a scientist who induced HUGELY influential mystical (a.k.a. spiritual) experiences in subjects with, I believed, peyote.

[_LDSToronto]

Grandma sat on the bed next to me and spoke to me...carrying on a conversation just like any normal conversation I would have with her. There was a soft light around her, but she looked basically like she had always looked, except calmer...more serene.

She took my hand in hers,

Liz, thanks for sharing this account. I have little doubt that you experienced something and I will not disrespect this cherished memory. Personally, I don't subscribe to a supernatural worldview, and I think there are other ways to view your experience, but that is neither here nor there.

For now, I'd like to ask you a question about the underlined portion in the quoted text above. D&C 129 says the following:

"When a messenger comes saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand and request him to shake hands with you. If he be an angel he will do so, and you will feel his hand. If he be the spirit of a just man made perfect he will come in his glory; for that is the only way he can appear— 7 Ask him to shake hands with you, but he will not move, because it is contrary to the order of heaven for a just man to deceive; but he will still deliver his message."

I understand you fall somewhere in the NOM end of LDS belief, so I'm interested in how you reconcile the tactile experience of feeling your grandmother's hand with the above passage. Do you believe she is an angel? Or do you reject D&C 129? Or, is there something else that you believe?

Thanks,
H.

[_Yoda]

Grandma sat on the bed next to me and spoke to me...carrying on a conversation just like any normal conversation I would have with her. There was a soft light around her, but she looked basically like she had always looked, except calmer...more serene.

She took my hand in hers,

Liz, thanks for sharing this account. I have little doubt that you experienced something and I will not disrespect this cherished memory. Personally, I don't subscribe to a supernatural worldview, and I think there are other ways to view your experience, but that is neither here nor there.

For now, I'd like to ask you a question about the underlined portion in the quoted text above. D&C 129 says the following:

"When a messenger comes saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand and request him to shake hands with you. If he be an angel he will do so, and you will feel his hand. If he be the spirit of a just man made perfect he will come in his glory; for that is the only way he can appear— 7 Ask him to shake hands with you, but he will not move, because it is contrary to the order of heaven for a just man to deceive; but he will still deliver his message."

I understand you fall somewhere in the NOM end of LDS belief, so I'm interested in how you reconcile the tactile experience of feeling your grandmother's hand with the above passage. Do you believe she is an angel? Or do you reject D&C 129? Or, is there something else that you believe?

Thanks,
H.

You know...I'm not really sure where my experience falls as far as this category is concerned. She was not physically dead when this vision occurred. However, her spirit was obviously separated from her body, at least during the time she appeared to me.

I think that maybe her taking her hand in mine happened because I needed it to, if that makes sense? I think that whatever God allows for whatever reason is possible.

At this point, I think that she is an angel, enjoying her next state of life with my grandfather, and other loved ones who have passed on as well.

[_consiglieri]

Can I give another spiritual experience, or are we limited to just the one?

When my Mom passed away in October of 2000, I flew down to Texas for the memorial service and afterward we had to decide what to do with her ashes.

I felt a strong impression come to me that she would want to rest in a certain lake about 90-miles away where we had spent what she considered her "golden years" back in the 1960's.

Everybody else immediately agreed with my suggestion.

We drove to the lake on a sunny October afternoon, found a place to park, and began to walk with her ashes along the lakeside.

I came upon a large bush waving gently in the breeze, absolutely covered with more Monarch butterflies than I have ever seen in my life. I thought how butterflies were a symbolism of resurrection and transformation.

I tell you this mainly to say that, although both these experiences were signfificant and profound to me personally, I do not equate them with supernatural intervention.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

P.S. After I posted this, it occurred to me this might be seen as a slam on Liz's experience. I assure you it is not. I see what happened with Liz as of a different type entirely. I just want to put out there that I don't see spiritual experiences hiding behind every tree . . . or bush.

[_Jhall118]

There was once a guy named Bill, he worked for a construction company. A lady named Sally worked for the same company, doing their payroll. Bill was away on the job, and Sally really needed to get a hold of him. She only had a phone home number, and Bill didn't have a cell phone (this was in the UK and before cell phones were all that popular). She picked up the phone and dialed the number, and then realized she had accidentally dialed his employee number. Whoops, just about to hang up, she hears "Hello?" She recognizes Bills voice.

Turns out the guy was on break walking past a payphone in a place he had never been before. It just so happened that his employee number was actually the phone number for that payphone, and he answered it for kicks.

A similar experience happened to me. When I was 15, I was working my first fast food job at a pretzel store that had recently opened in a mall. A few of my friends were playing around in an old apartment complex(they did not know where I worked, or that I was working at the time). One of them went upstairs to one of the rooms for some reason. They wanted to tell him to come down, so they used the system in the lobby to telephone him.

The phone rang at my work and I answered it thinking it was a customer. I found my very confused friend on the other line, wondering why I was up in the room with my friend. I explained to him I was at work... in an entirely different part of town.

The odds of these events are just as astronomical if not more-so than having a vision of an older loved one dying and talking to you, within an hour of them actually dying.

Does this mean my experience was miraculous? Nope, just random chance. reproducibility is key. If dead grandparents really are able to communicate with us, then they all should be able to communicate with us- not just some special butterflies. The fact that your experiences are statistically rare supports the hypothesis that they were chance delusions (I mean that with no negative connotation) that just had bad odds.

[_LDSToronto]

Can I give another spiritual experience, or are we limited to just the one?

When my Mom passed away in October of 2000, I flew down to Texas for the memorial service and afterward we had to decide what to do with her ashes.

I felt a strong impression come to me that she would want to rest in a certain lake about 90-miles away where we had spent what she considered her "golden years" back in the 1960's.

Everybody else immediately agreed with my suggestion.

We drove to the lake on a sunny October afternoon, found a place to park, and began to walk with her ashes along the lakeside.

I came upon a large bush waving gently in the breeze, absolutely covered with more Monarch butterflies than I have ever seen in my life. I thought how butterflies were a symbolism of resurrection and transformation.

I tell you this mainly to say that, although both these experiences were signfificant and profound to me personally, I do not equate them with supernatural intervention.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

P.S. After I posted this, it occurred to me this might be seen as a slam on Liz's experience. I assure you it is not. I see what happened with Liz as of a different type entirely. I just want to put out there that I don't see spiritual experiences hiding behind every tree . . . or bush.

Consig, I think this is an important post because it highlights the difference between spiritual experiences and supernatural experiences. One can experience the spiritual even with a disbelief in the supernatural, or even a disbelief in deity.

H.