Drilldown #1: TBMs, details re your spiritual experience

[_Themis]

I've been witness to others that have relayed experiences that confirmed to them that there is some type of existence after death. I've been impressed with their experiences because they are people I trust to the extent that I trust my own perceptions/experiences. I've had a number of experiences in my own life that I have a difficult time chalking up to neurotransmitters doing something out the ordinary, but I'm not willing to share here.

Thanks for sharing that experience Liz.

Regards,
MG

Although I have heard a number of similar stories of dead family coming back to talk to living loved ones, I believe Liz sates in her OP that her Grandmother was not dead at the time of the expereince.

[_Themis]

Anyway, those are the experiences that got me on my spiritual road. I don’t know if they are, even in my mind, absolutely clear spiritual manifestation. I mean they are spiritual manifestations in my mind, but I wouldn’t say these alone are the basis for my Mormonism.

Hi stemelbow, for the benefit of those that are sincerely interested in the basis and/or validity of what are referred to as spiritual experiences, would you clarify whether you would term your spiritual experiences to consist primarily of emotional feelings/response, or something qualitatively different? If consiglieri would like to chime in here too, great.

I'm of the opinion, personally, that spiritual experiences consist of something qualitatively unique in which emotion may or may not play a part, but often is not the primary factor/component.

Thanks,
MG

Could you define what you consider to be the non emotional aspects of the spiritual experience?

[_Nightlion]

It isn't for lack of trying. I have tried praying all night, fasting for days, reading the scriptures, living the gospel as completely as I can. After thousands of hours of prayer, scripture study, missionary work, over 30+ years, I am convinced beyond doubt that if God does exist, he doesn't give a s*** about me. I must be the biggest idiot in the world to keep it up for so long when it obviously wasn't going anywhere. That's the definition of insanity, right???

Why some people can receive spiritual experiences effortlessly (or with little effort) is beyond me.

Interesting. Care to comb through this with me by PM? You must be stingingly honest with me. Things I would want to know:

1. What exactly did you want?
2. Beside fasting how set apart from the world were you at any given time and for how long?
3. How much did a spirit of repentance come into play?
A. Not just of your personal sins but repentance of being the natural man who is not submissive unto Jesus Christ having never taken upon you the name of Jesus Christ with full purpose of heart.
B. How much of repentance time was spent in yielding your heart to be submissive unto the rule of Christ even at the hazard of you own personal interests, ambitions, dreams and expectations you set for yourself.
C. Was (is) there anything of this world that you would NEVER surrender to the Lord or in the least allow him to take away from you or ask you to abandon?
4. How righteous did (do) you think you already are?
5. Were you motives pure? By that I mean seeking the Lord's righteousness and not seeking to excel or achieve advanced degrees of righteousness to :"Lord" it over on others?

Just for starters.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I've had one hallucination and a few "spiritual experiences" in my lifetime, but the hallucination was when I had a fever and the spiritual experiences were so obviously emotionally manufactured that I didn't take them too seriously even at the time they occurred, when I was a true believer.

In addition to what others have said about the possibility that Liz's experience was a memory error, I thought I'd toss in the possibility that it might have been a dream. Liz commented that she obviously wasn't asleep at the time, but she actually may have been asleep without realizing it. There's a state called hypnagogia, which is a sort of half-sleep, in which people experience hallucinations that feel very real. Most of the population experiences this at least a few times in their life, though only a small percentage experience it frequently. Normally we'd just forget such experiences, but the odds are that at least some of those hypnagogic dreams will dovetail with something in real life, and in those cases we'll tend to remember them and attribute religious significance to them.

[_sock puppet]

the [few] spiritual experiences were so obviously emotionally manufactured that I didn't take them too seriously even at the time they occurred, when I was a true believer.

That's me too.

[_Themis]

the [few] spiritual experiences were so obviously emotionally manufactured that I didn't take them too seriously even at the time they occurred, when I was a true believer.

That's me too.

The idea that the spiritual expereince is internally generated seems to cause many members, and even more apologists to say it is more then emotions, but I wonder if what they are not defining as emotional, others would. This of course does not include things like thoughts, visions, etc.

[_CaliforniaKid]

This of course does not include things like thoughts, visions, etc.

I had a "vision" once, but it was just a flash, it was only in my "mind's eye", and it came during a time of intense emotional prayer right after 9/11. But when you're in a religious context that encourages you to have such experiences and narrate them in a grandiose way (i.e. Pentecostalism), you grab hold of any little thing and try to forget the inconsistent details. I was never very good at this.

[_Nightlion]

This of course does not include things like thoughts, visions, etc.

I had a "vision" once, but it was just a flash, it was only in my "mind's eye", and it came during a time of intense emotional prayer right after 9/11. But when you're in a religious context that encourages you to have such experiences and narrate them in a grandiose way (i.e. Pentecostalism), you grab hold of any little thing and try to forget the inconsistent details. I was never very good at this.

Do we get to know what you saw?
It was on account of their great anxiety for the welfare of their children that the Nephites had great fews of the the future. So emotions do not negate spiritual reality. Spiritual experience does not require that we care less but more.

[_mentalgymnast]

I've been witness to others that have relayed experiences that confirmed to them that there is some type of existence after death. I've been impressed with their experiences because they are people I trust to the extent that I trust my own perceptions/experiences. I've had a number of experiences in my own life that I have a difficult time chalking up to neurotransmitters doing something out the ordinary, but I'm not willing to share here.

Thanks for sharing that experience Liz.

Regards,
MG

Although I have heard a number of similar stories of dead family coming back to talk to living loved ones, I believe Liz sates in her OP that her Grandmother was not dead at the time of the expereince.

That's true, but then she says later in her narrative, "I have felt her presence from time to time over the years."

After she was dead.

Regards,
MG

[_Themis]

That's true, but then she says later in her narrative, "I have felt her presence from time to time over the years."

After she was dead.

Regards,
MG

I think you would agree that feeling a presence is not nearly as good as seeing, whether in a dream, mind's eye, or physical.