My Life Journey through the Lens of Many Paranomal Experiences

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I'll begin with the first 2 of 3 childhood experiences that were the foundaton of many future paranormal experiences:
TOUCHED BY GOD IN 2 EARLY CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

(1) By the time I was 6 I had learned to hate church. There was no children's church or Sunday school for my age and Church bored me because I couldn't relate to much of the 1 1/2 hour services, especially the sermons. So I squirmed and protested in our pew and made myself a nuisance to my parents. My parents were weekly attenders, but one Sunday they stayed home for reasons I never understood. I suspect the nightmare of dealing with my hissyfits was part of the reason! I was so glad to escape church that sunny and clear July morning! God was the furthest thing from my mind. To celebrate I zoomed up and own the sidewalk to the ends of our block on my little tricycle.

Then I noticed the big new blue Chevy with huge tailfins parked behind the Jewish shoe store salesman's building. Evidently he had just waxed and polished it and it just glistened as it reflected the brilliant sunlight. To me it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen; so I constantly road back to it to stare in wonder. Once, when I returned, I had my first life-changing God moment. For some strange reason, my attention was directed to a patch of blue near the sun. As I gazed at it, wave after wave of liquid love surged through my being. Suddenly I became acutely aware of the presence of a God who loved me and I just basked in that love!

I told my parents about my experience, but they didn't seem very interested. That all changed a few days later when neighbors came over to tell my parents how impressed they were that I was excitedly sharing my embryonic new faith with my playmates. I knew little about God and the Bible and I have always wondered what I was saying about God and my experience to my little playmates.

(2) At age 11, I realized that I should be baptized to please my parents and obey the Gospel. I had to attend a few preparatory catechetical classes and I was the only child among about 11 adult male candidates. The classes appalled me because the lecturer used poorly explained jargon like justification, propitiation, and sanctification which produceded excruciation in the mind of this young boy who couldn't grasp the meaning of these big words. Quoting Colossians 2:11 , the lecturer informed us that we needed to be "circumcised in spirit." That might have been helpful if I knew what physical circumcision was and if he explained this jargon.

I would be the last of the 12 to be baptized by immersion in a large tank behind the platform before a crowd of about 1,400 people. I was petrified because I learned I was expected to share a personal testimony in front of that huge crowd and because, blush, the bottom of my baptismal robe seemed to float up, exposing my nakedness! All the men gave a formulaic personal testimony that I can recite even today. Then I nervously waded out to the pastor and he asked me, "Donny, would you like to share a word for the Lord Jesus?" I shook my head in the negative. So the pastor continued, "OK, let me ask you some faith questions." I felt publicly humiliated as the only one not to share a testimony and at that point I just wanted to get this ordeal over with to please my parents.

But after the pastor dunked me, something amazing happened as I emerged from the water. I suddenly had a vision of Jesus, smiling at me, radiating love and conveying the feeling that He found my predicament rather amusing. I sensed His empathy for my confusion over all the poorly explained catechetical jargon and my groundless fear about my nakedness being exposed by the floating bottom of my robe. And years later when I became a theology professor, I reflected that Jesus must have found it amusing that a motormouth like me would be utterly tongue-tied at my youthful baptism. My first and only vision in my life transformed an unpleasant baptismal ordeal into one of the most sacred and treasured memories of my life!

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(3) THE SPIRITUAL HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE: MY SPIRIT BAPTISM

At age 16 I was so nagged by doubts about the reliability of Scripture and the authenticity of charismatic manifestations in church that my faith crisis prompted me to spend a week at Manhattan Beach Camp near Ninette, Manitoba with the hope that God would meet me in the Pentecostal camp meetings in the huge outdoor amphitheater there. I responded to the encouragement to seek God at the altar after the services. But my heart felt like stone when I did because I felt tempted to succumb to wishful thinking and just speak gibberish in the flesh. So on Tuesday, I went on a long 7-mile country prayer walk, pleading with God to resolve my crippling doubts and pledging my willingness to die in His service, if He would only make Himself real to me. When I returned from my walk, I was famished and went to the camp dining hall to buy dinner. But then it occurred to me that I should instead fast and put the money I would have spent on dinner into the evening offering plate. So I did and then attended the evening camp meeting.

At the end of the service, as I had done previously in vain, I walked to the altar up front and knelt in prayer. My heart again felt like stone and I was determined not to succumb to the power of suggestion and wishful thinking by stepping out in faith and speaking in tongues. Soon everyone had left and I lingered in my depressing prayer vigil in the mostly darkened amphitheater. Suddenly I felt a warm breeze, which I assumed had blown in off of the adjacent Pelican Lake. I was shocked when I realized that this breeze was in fact the wind of the Holy Spirit! The Spirit immediately overpowered my resistance and I found myself speaking in tongues at the top of my voice. I was engulfed by wave after wave of liquid love, each wave more intense than the last, until I felt like I might die! At one point, my ego seemed on the verge of collapse into the divine mind. I can only describe this outpouring of divine love as a hundred times more intense and sweeter than I have experienced before or since. This proved to be unquestionably the highlight of my life and, decades later, I continue to draw emotional nourishment from the memory of that epic day.

After several minutes, I noticed a few spectators sitting reverently nearby. I asked one lady why she was staring at me and she replied, "Don't you know? Your face is glowing in the dark!" I returned to my knees to continue feasting on God's presence. Then I was interrupted by a Lutheran minister, who tapped me on the shoulder and said he was there only as an interested spectator of other religious traditions and didn't believe in speaking in tongues. But he could sense that God was doing a special work in my spirit and he asked me to pray for him. I didn't argue wit him, but just touched him gently on the forehead and he exploded in other tongues!

When I returned to my cabin, I realized that God had spoken to me, though not in an audible voice or a message printed on the neon screen of my mind. God told me, "You desperately need answers to your vexing questions. But right now answers are not good for you because answers would lead you to live too much in your head rather than from your heart. I'm calling you to live the big questions until they lead you to the center of my heart." That calling led me to get an MDiv from Princeton and a doctorate in New Testament, Judaism, and Greco-Roman religion from Harvard.

Like many others, I believe that speaking in tongues is like a gateway drug that leads to other gifts of the Spirit. Shortly after the experience, I had my first of many experiences of "the word of knowledge (see 1 Corinthians 12:8-10)." I suddenly knew that I would obtain the highest high school GPA in the province as a gift from God to signify my academic calling. At a funeral a few years ago, my cousin reminded me that I had informed him of this divine message before it was fulfilled. Previously, my academic performance had been nothing special. So I believe that my Baptism in the Holy Spirit had "renewed my mind (as per Romans 12:1-2). Duff Roblin, the Premier of the province, awarded my a scholarship in recognition of this achievement. I believe this recognition supported my earlier attempts to witness to classmates, which had seemed to give me a reputation as a religious fanatic. To God be the glory!

Quite apart from the teaching of Paul and the Book of Acts on this matter, I'm convinced that if any of you had experienced what I did that fateful night, it would by BY FAR the spiritual highlight of your life. It is the reason why I never drifted off into agnosticism.

 

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But “the word of knowledge” is a spiritual gift that can be part of a learning curve and its application is not always easy to grasp. Consider these 2 paranormal clairvoyant experiences at the onset of Christmas vacation:

(4) At age 19, I was a Winnipeg college student. About 5 years my senior, my friend Dallas was the leader of our church youth group of about 150. I had just been Best Man at his wedding and was now invited to the newlyweds post-Christmas dinner. After eating, we played table tennis in their basement. Dallas mentioned that he was going deer hunting in northern Manitoba the next day and I instantly felt a sense of dread. It seemed as if I saw his skeleton and was certain that he would be killed in an accident if he went on this trip. Horrified, I felt compelled to share my premonition with him. He was offended and blamed my so-called premonition on my anti-hunting views. I had no such views, though I’ve never gone hunting myself. What could I do? I had no evidence beyond my certainty. I guess I hoped God would confirm my premonition to Dallas.

A few days later, we had a New Year’s Eve service at our church. What happened when I arrived at the church was straight out of a horror movie. 3 young girls in our youth group approached me, giggling, and said. You do know that Dallas was killed yesterday in a hunting accident. He was riding a snowmobile with his gun leaning beside him and hit a bump, which caused his rifle to discharge into his shoulder. He bled to death before his hunting buddies got him to a doctor. Thr girls giggled and one said to the other, “Wow, I guess we sure ruined his day!” It was as if Hell was taunting me for my friendship with Dallas. What was so funny about their youth leader’s death? I charitably assumed that their was just a nervous laughter. I later obsessed over what this tragedy meant. Why was I given this premonition if it would be useless to prevent his death? And was his death predestined fate?

(5) In my senior year at Princeton Seminary, I was about to return home for Christmas vacation. My friend Ted had just been accepted in the D. Phil. program in New Testament at Cambridge U. and I also wanted to apply to that doctoral program. So I went to Ted’s dorm room and asked if I could borrow his Cambridge catalogue. As I did, I suddenly “saw” his skeleton and knew that his death was imminent. But what could I do? I didn’t know how he would die. So I tried to put this knowledge out of my mind and flew home for Christmas. When I returned, I learned from Ted’s friend Ken that Ted had been killed in a car accident. Ken was driving him home to Ohio, when Ken’s car slipped on an icy freeway onramp and the car crashed into a pole, killing Ted and breaking Ken’s arm. I had tried to suppress my premonition. In retrospect, I wondered if God alerted me to Dallas’s and Ted’s fate because He wanted me to intercede for their protection. These premonitions kept coming and were never wrong! Stay tuned for more accounts.

 

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(6) My next experience of the "word of knowledge" was unequivocally helpful. As part of Princeton's field education, I worked as a chaplain assistant at the Newark College of Engineering. The night prior to my drive to Newark, I had a nightmare, a premonitory dream in which I knew my life would be in danger and I cried out to God for mercy. On the drive home the next day, my car died in the dark a New Jersey freeway. I was fortunate to escape the fast-moving traffic and my car was quickly totaled by another speeding car. I called my friend Peter at my dorm and he and another friend, Mike, drove up to fetch me. Both of them had experienced nightmares of impending disaster the previous night! By these 3 dream warnings, God showed me that He was in charge and was my divine protector.

 

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(7) As described in my last post, a few decades ago my car broke down in the evening during rush hour on a New Jersey freeway and was totaled after I dodged speeding traffic to get off the freeway. I called my friend Peter from Princeton Seminary, where I was a student at the time, and it was only then that I learned that he and Mike (who came up with Peter to fetch me) had, like myself, both had nightmares of impending danger the previous night. Divine providence at work!

That experience reminded me of an analogous experience I had just last year. I was about cross a local street at a stop sign. As I stepped in front the car stopped at the sign, the driver simultaneously stepped on the gas and sped forward. not seeing me. With providential split-second timing, I lunged backwards and just missed being struck by that car by an inch! Then I received a frantic phone call from Quentin, a young man 2,000 miles away in Buffalo, who had been in my church youth group before I moved to the west coast. A panicky Quentin told me he had just had strong premonition that my life was in danger and indeed that I might have been killed! I hadn't heard from him in several years. Of course, I told him about my near-miss.

 

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(8) This next encounter with "the word of knowledge" is probably my 2nd most treasured spiritual highlight in my life. I had applied to Harvard's doctoral program in New Testament, Judaism, and Greco-Roman backgrounds, but my a fellow seminarian told me I'd be rejected just like he was. So where would I study next after my graduation from Princeton's MDiv program in the next few months?

As I was worrying about this, George ( a godly fellow seminarian) knocked on my door one Tuesday night to say, "Don, I've been praying for you, and the Lord has shown me that you're going to be accepted by Harvard." George was not even a friend, but he must have picked up my dream from table gossip in the seminary dining hall. In any case, his warm assurance melted my fears and was transferred to me! What a blessing he was! The next night was absolutely surreal!

Another seminarian, Ann, came to my dorm room and falsely accused me of calling her to tell her that she was too emotionally unstable to be in seminary! The guy's voice must have sounded like mine. Ann had just broken up with John, a frequent dining companion of mine, and Ann probably assumed that John gossiped to me about his reasons for breaking up with her. In fact, John never said a word about this. How does one defend himself when he is blindsided by a false accusation like this? I was actually quite fond of Ann for being a great comfort when my boyhood spiritual mentor, Nick, was killed in a car accident.

In the midst of her harangue, there was a knock on the door, and I was summoned to answer a pay phone call down the hall. It was John Strugnell of Harvard, the professor who controlled the Dead Sea Scroll translation project at that time. He congratulated me on my acceptance at Harvard with scholarship assistance. Imagine how emotionally torn I was by joyful gratitude for George's "word of knowledge" and anguish over Ann's false accusation. When I returned to my room, Ann asked me, "Who was that?" perhaps thinking that John had called to tip me off about her accusation. She looked very puzzled when I shared my joy at just having being admitted to Harvard's doctoral program. Then she asked me, "Are you all right? oYou're right palm is streaming blood onto your pants on the floor!" I felt no pain, but I nearly freaked out when I saw all that blood! This is the first and only time I have experience the stigmata. Ann seemed to take the combination of this bleeding and the timing of my great news as a sign of my innocence, and so, she hastily left. I'm so grateful that God orchestrated these coincidences to vindicate me, encourage me, and let me know that His guiding hand was on my life. My only regret is that I can't recall tracking George down to let him know how grateful I was for his effective prayer support.

 

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(9) My next experience of "the word of knowledge" happened when I was a Theology professor at a Catholic university in New York state. I had just finished my 4-course teaching load and was exhausted. So I began to think about a much needed vacation. But that Friday night I became obsessed with the thought that someone was about to die and that death would affect my life and change my plans. I tried hard to put this depressing thought out of my mind, but the more I tried, the stronger it got! By Saturday I began to fear that someone in my immediate family would die. On Monday morning I decided to ignore this premonition by going out for breakfast to contemplate my vacation plans. But as I walked to my front door, an inner voice shouted, "Sit down! You are about to hear about the death!"

The moment I sat down, the phone rang and it was Dr. Whelan, the chair of our summer graduate theology program. She told me that visiting Professor Corcoran had failed to show up for his summer class on Pauline Theology. Thinking he had slept in, someone knocked on his campus apartment door, but there was no answer. Alarmed, they opened the door and found him in bed, having died from diabetic shock! Dr. Whelan said the grad students were waiting in the lecture hall and that I was the only one around trained to teach that course with no notice. Would I teach it? I complied because the Lord had been preparing my heart for this news all weekend and I was richly blessed by my contact with those grad students.

 

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(10) MY FAVORITE COMMENT FROM MY MOTHER

No church in Winnipeg would host Rev. Hart. That forced him to hold his meetings in Lighthouse Mission, a place of worship that homeless men and alcoholics had to attend to get a free meal across the street. At age 16 I preached my first sermon there. I was inspired by the huge crowd of about 200 men. But God has a sense of humor. What they didn't tell me is that the men were required to stay only for the songs and prayers to get their meal. They could skip the sermon! So I included a rousing song service and prayed. But as I got up to read my text and preach, all but about 10 men walked out. I was crushed!

When my parents and younger brother attended Rev. Hart's meeting there years later, I (age 23) was now a student at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. After preaching, Rev. Hart began using "the word of knowledge" to minister healing. He picked my mother out of the crowd and said, "Sister, you are suffering from calcium deposits in your shoulder." This was true. He then said, "The Lord has healed your calcium deposits and removed your pain!" This proved to be correct! Then he picked my brother out of the crowd and said, "Son, you have a kidney problem." My brother was in med school at the time and was about to deny this when Rev. Hart added, "The symptom of your problem is a stabling pain in the small of your back!" This was true. Then he added, "The Lord has just healed you!" My brother's back pain instantly vanished!

Then Rev. Hart said something fascinating that I still ponder decades later: "This is my last meeting. I have to spend so many hours in prayer to keep my gift active, but those prayer vigils take too much out of me; so I need to discontinue them." This comment raised several questions for me: Could I exercise my "word of knowledge" gift in combination with healing, if I spent hours a day in prayer? Rev. Hart's ministry seemed more impressive than that of big-name faith healers whose meetings I attended. Was his greater effectiveness due to his long prayer vigils, vigils these other healers were unwilling to undertake? Why didn't Rev. Hart receive invitations from local larger Pentecostal churches? Why didn't his effectiveness give him a widespread reputation that drew large crowed like the big-name faith healers? In my experience, the most impressive supernatural manifestations I have witnessed have happened in the least impressive venues.
My mother told me about our family's encounter with Rev. Hart when I came home to Canada for Christmas. But she added a detail that made me feel very uneasy. After Rev. Hart's meeting, she followed him to his car. He turned and said to her: "You're worried about your son back in the USA, aren't you? You think he's getting too liberal!" I gulped as I feared what my Mom would say next! Rev. Hart paused as if listening for the Holy Spirit's word about me. Then he smiled and said, "Well, he's not; he'll be OK; so don't worry about him." I breathed a sigh of relief! But later during my Christmas visit, I said something insignificant that prompted Mom to say, "See, I told you that you were getting too liberal!" I replied, "But Mom, you just received a prophetic word from Rev. Hart that I was not too liberal and that I was OK!" An impish look crossed Mom's face as if I had nailed her. Her following comment is so dear to me that I highlighted it at her funeral over which I presided about 6 years ago. She smiled and snapped back, "Oh, what does he know?" I have shared my own experiences with the word of knowledge on this thread , but Rev. Hart's gift is the most impressive I've ever encountered. He had never met me or any of my family.

Attac​

 

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(11) SUPERNATURAL GUIDANCE

At age 11 I went out Trick or Treating for the last time. I arrived at one house where the living room was full of lit candles. The woman came to the door and told me she was Bill's Mom. I knew Bill only as a fellow 6th grader, but when I left that door, I strangely felt that I should remember that encounter because it would be important for me later in life. Bill and I were never friends from grade to grade. He was a great high school basketball player and I played soccer. When I was a senior in college, Bill suddenly approached me to tell me the wonderful news that he'd recently become a Christian. He had flunked out of high school and gained probationary admittance to college in a "mature student program." But now he was flunking out of college; so he swallowed his pride and asked if I'd tutor him. I was glad to do so and equipped him with a 500 word critical thinking vocabulary to be used in all future papers. He thought my word list was stupid, but used them anyway and, to his great dismay, he got his first A.

Bill was the most successful guy with women I'd ever met. While I was tutoring him, gorgeous female strangers would approach him and ask him out! I couldn't help but notice that this never happened to me. Sigh! When he broke up with his latest sexy girlfriend, I invited him to our church young adult group in the hope he might find a Christian girlfriend. He pointed out Karen, a sharp Christian girl whom I didn't think would meet his physical standards. So I introduced them, they fell in love, and had 4 children. We lost touch when I left Winnipeg for seminary in the USA.
What happened next displays God's spectacular guiding hand in both of our lives. One day, the admissions director at Princeton Seminary sat at my table in the cafeteria and inexplicably asked me to tutor him in Greek, even though he didn't even know me and he could have audited a course in Greek or asked a doctoral student instead of an MDiv student like me. After a few sessions, he brought up the question of payment and I was about to say, "No charge" when the Holy Spirit took over my tongue. I found myself asking him to repay me by admitting Bill to the MDiv program. I explained that his grades were often poor, but that I had tutored him and seen his academic potential. Stunningly, he agreed and Bill was awarded a huge scholarship. He proceeded to win Princeton's thousand dollar senior thesis prize and Karen became a successful Wall Street lawyer.

Bill went to get his doctorate in New Testament from St. Andrews in Scotland, write 2 books on the NT, and 3 novels, one of which was later to serve as the proposed script for a Hollywood movie, and Bill was voted top teaching professor at his prominent evangelical seminary. How's that for a guy whose high school teachers told him he had too low an IQ to even think of college?

After decades without contact, Bill recently tracked me down, so he could mail me his 3 novels. But now he's mad at me for my delaying my reading of them. Sigh! I guess I should stop posting so much here and read them just to get Bill off my back. The memory of that Halloween, when I visited Bill's house and was alerted to our future relationship still haunts and blesses me.

 

[Harel13]

*Mod Post: Thread moved to Journals*​