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Have any of you had an overwhelming religious experience?

F

Friend of Bill W

Member
As per the title, have any of you had an overwhelming religious experience? I'm not talking about a William James 'spiritual awakening of the educational variety', but a big - life altering, perception changing - overwhelming religious experience.

If so, what was it like?
 
sunsplash

sunsplash

Freckled
The gradual progression of me realizing that I didn't buy into Christianity/Jesus, that it felt so wrong to the point of making me physically ill, and figuring out how to go on WITH faith and WITHOUT that one component that burned fear into my psyche for 20 years, was most definitely life altering, perception changing and overwhelming. It was extremely scary letting go but spiritually calming as well because religion without Jesus felt right.
 
Willamena

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
Well, I stood for a moment on the threshold of the world, and envisioned the abyss.

But a religious one? No.
 
sandandfoam

sandandfoam

Veteran Member
No.
But I've had countless small ones. Most days have such moments.
Breathing the clean air, sunlight, clouds, a view of the mountains, nature is full of them.
Other times poetry, music, a book, a picture or just a moment can carry me to the presence of God.
I find that wonder is all around.
 
9-10ths_Penguin

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
stephenw said:
No.
But I've had countless small ones. Most days have such moments.
Breathing the clean air, sunlight, clouds, a view of the mountains, nature is full of them.
Other times poetry, music, a book, a picture or just a moment can carry me to the presence of God.
I find that wonder is all around.
Click to expand...
Out of curiosity, do you consider all wondrous experiences to be religious?
 
Eliot Wild

Eliot Wild

Irreverent Agnostic Jerk
Willamena said:
Well, I stood for a moment on the threshold of the world, and envisioned the abyss.
Click to expand...


Hey, so that was you? I was there at the threshold of the world the same day you were. I thought I recognized you. That abyss thing, pretty wicked cool, huh? A bit scary, but still wicked cool. I can't wait to go back and take the kids.
 
MysticSang'ha

MysticSang'ha

Big Squishy Hugger
Premium Member
When I was severely ill and bleeding out at the hospital, and my healing experiences afterward where I couldn't stop shaking uncontrollably (perhaps from septic shock) and full of mind-blowing internal pain and sickness, my perspective on reality and my mortality was turned upside down on it's head.

I can also say giving birth without anesthesia was an experience I can't describe well.

Religious experiences? For me, they are. But I think within the personal scope, that's all that matters. They're both deeply intimate life experiences.
 
I Keep Unicorns

I Keep Unicorns

Member
I've had some astonishing, life-moving moments in my life.
But nothing I would describe as religious.
If I were spriritually inclined, I would be more comfortable describing certain moments in my life as religious somehow.. Love, being a salient one. There's too much rationality in me for inclination to describe anything in my life as an overwhelming religious experience.
 
Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
stephenw said:
:shrug:
You're the second skeptic today referring me to the bowels for religious instruction.
I see a pattern :D
Click to expand...

I was simply asking a question - not engaging in any type of instruction. I'm simply trying to determine which experiences qualify as religious, and what criteria you are using to categorize these experiences.
 
Penumbra

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Friend of Bill W said:
As per the title, have any of you had an overwhelming religious experience? I'm not talking about a William James 'spiritual awakening of the educational variety', but a big - life altering, perception changing - overwhelming religious experience.

If so, what was it like?
Click to expand...
not for me, no
 
Reptillian

Reptillian

Hamburgler Extraordinaire
Friend of Bill W said:
As per the title, have any of you had an overwhelming religious experience? I'm not talking about a William James 'spiritual awakening of the educational variety', but a big - life altering, perception changing - overwhelming religious experience.

If so, what was it like?
Click to expand...

I'm an agnostic, but as for religious experiences...it depends on what you mean...many of my ancestors were extremely religious people so I probably have a genetic predispostion towards that type of divine feeling. I think this has been invaluable to me as a scientist. Many times I have seen further than others or looked at something mundane in an unusual fashion and had an Archimedes style "Eureka!" moment. This is probably quite akin to a religious experience I would imagine. As Plato puts it...finding truth is like being exposed to sunlight for the first time after having been a prisoner in a dark cave. It may be overwhelming, maybe even frighting, at first but eventually you get used to the truth and desire to go back into the cave to help free your fellow prisoners.
 
Scarlett Wampus

Scarlett Wampus

psychonaut
Three times with the overwhelming type - all quite different from each other. Such experiences seem to run in my family but I'm unlike my mother and my father in that I have both of their individual characteristic tendencies for them.

The first was intensely emotional & exciting. I stood on the spot and shook for hours (or what felt like hours). It was like I'd encountered another being who sympathetically stepped inside me, giving me a chance to feed a little from its energy which felt like an harmonic song so loud & fast it also resembled a deafening scream of joy. Afterwards the change in me was from often feeling helplessly frightened & vulnerable to feeling ferociously deviant and full of passionate wonder. Very, very rarely does that side of me show its face openly but I can still feel the force of the ecstatic rage now, just under the skin. It still feels unstoppable.

The second was (as per my metaphor at the time) like the planets aligning and sending a single massively powerful laser down through the heavens and straight down my spine. Aha! I had found an answer to a burning issue (Was there anything essentially 'me' before I was created in my mother's womb?) I looked at the room around me and it flowed into me. I was it and it was me and it was all, endlessly stretching out boundlessly. Afterwards the change in me was a lessening of my neurotic tendencies, greater calmness, the "end of loneliness" (as I called it) and an overall increase in my happiness.

The third was just ridiculous. In the back of my mind I was having a daydream conversation with an imaginary benevolent feminine person while shopping in town. On my way back it suddenly struck me that this imaginary person was saying kind things about people that that went beyond my capacity to understand. I felt kind of heartless by comparison and absent-mindedly thought, "I wish I could see with your eyes..." and the next moment I did see and it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Everyone and everything around me was suddenly burning intensely like stars; beautiful, dazzling, elegant and I felt love for them like nothing I could ever have imagined - such power & grace to everyone! It was such a shock. Afterwards the change in me was, well, I enjoy other people's company a lot more. :)
 
Blackdog22

Blackdog22

Well-Known Member
Well my family had an overwhelming religious experience. I was 15, and they were sitting in the living room. To paint a picture, there was Michael W. Smith playing in the background, about 8 candles lit, and the room was pitch black other than the candle light. All I heard was them screaming at the top of there lungs.Upon entering the room they began flopping on the floor like fish out of water, my step mother would whip her body from her legs to her head while shaking, and screaming. My Dad was silent. I was frozen in horror. They said they were seeing visions of people being slaughtered with axes, and were attemping to knock the axes out of the peoples hands, but were just knocking things over in the room. They started running around, and dancing and like laugh crying? If that is a word. They would laugh, and then cry/scream in periodic breaks. After the Jesus room fun time they began shattering all of the entertainment in the house claiming we only needed Jesus. Then they sent me up to my room to be grounded until I was just as enthusiastic as they were while not letting me out until I read the New Testament through at least 4 Books. The experience shook me to my core, and continued on a nightly basis for 2 months. I went to see my mom that Christmas 2 months later, and never came back. They still don't understand why I left. :run:


Anyways yeah that was pretty overwhelming.
 
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