David B

I don't suppose many of you will have read a lot of my posts, so for those who haven't, many years ago I was quite deeply involved in the TM cult.

When I was intitiated into TM I had a very powerful experience. Every muscle in my body, it seemed, started to twitch, yet at the same time I felt so at home, so compassionate, so blissful.

I now understand that as being a result of being put into a suggestable state by the ritual. Coupled, perhaps, with hope, preconceptions of eastern religious experience...

But I'm wondering if any other escapees from religion had powerful experiences during their religious periods, which helped convince them of the truth of what they then believed.

Anyone had the Toronto Blessing, a deep 'spiritual hit' during mass, or confirmation, baptism.........?

And if so, what do you make of the experience in retrospect?

David B

Imaginary Mark

I have some Pentecostal friends who have talked about this Toronto Blessing thing before. They're into that kind of thing. My own experiences with Pentecostal-type things were not that intense, but not insignificant either. At the time I found the experiences pleasant but not as powerful as I thought they would be. And that's how it was for most other people too, from what I could tell. Nobody had a muscle twitch thing going on.

Looking back on it I'm glad I had them, just like I'm glad I've had pretty much all of my life experiences, positive or negative. They're what make me who I am today. Apart from genetics. But I digress....

One thing that strikes me about these "spiritual" experiences is that usually they took a lot of work. You had to take the time to relax and get in the right frame of mind. It was good for stress relaxation but it doesn't seem like it would be worth the trouble anymore now that I no longer hold out hope for experiencing something really mindblowing. It was that hope that propelled me to put in the effort.