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Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
#1
Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
Hi guys, newbie here, wondering if any converts have experienced religious ecstasy in the past and wish to share those stories. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_ecstasy)
My story: I'm 20 years old living in the uk. I was brought up in a family who didn't consider themselves as religious. However, due to enrolment into scouts and youth groups, I came to believing in God from around 10 years old. I regularly attended youth groups up until I was around 17.
When I was 15/16 I went to Soul Survivor, a biiiig Christian festival style weekend event. During the evenings a huge gathering of everyone at the festival (around 10,000 people) was held in a giant marquee with a centre stage. There were the usual hymns, songs and Christian rock performed by a band during the evening.
However nearing the end Mike Pilavachi, the main speaker, called on the Holy Spirit to "fill those with feelings of loss and sadness happiness and grace". Many people soon began to speak "in tounges" and some fainted etc. Having recently felt loss of a very close member of the family I "tried" to contact the Holy Spirit aswell.
All I remember after that is closing my eyes and waking after having a strange lucid dream of me seeing myself in 3rd person apologising to nothing (everything was white). I then proceeded to cry uncontrollably. I mean a real cry your heart out cry.
After I'd calmed I felt a bit better ( apart from exhaustion from emotional trauma) and found I had been "out" for over 30mins.I also found had large carpet burns on the backs of my arms and upper back where I had been apparently shaking the entire time.

It was a very strange experience. Hard to understand and hard to explain. it's kept me from being able to think of myself as a gnostic athiest due to lack of understand what on earth biologically/spiritually/whatever happend.

Sorry about the extreme length of the post.
I hope some of you might share some stories on here and how it's effected you post conversion to atheism.
<3 Thall
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#2
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
Hard to explain indeed, although no doubt it was more psychology than holy spirit.

I've never been 'religious' or formed any sort of belief in a god so I can't help mate, sorry. Good to see another Brit on the board though Smile Hope you stick around.
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#3
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
Thanks mate! Every forum needs tea and crumpets!
My current slightly educated thoughts on it are that the experience acts as a trigger for deep emotional trauma. Which has a massive list of side effects. Including death... Hmm xD
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#4
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
Welcome... thats crazy.. wow.. did u take pic of the marks?
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#5
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
Sadly no :l I had two large scars for a good 2-3years after. Far too faded to photograph now.. Plus one is now hidden under a clothes iron burn xD.
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#6
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
(March 20, 2014 at 9:09 am)Thall Wrote: It was a very strange experience. Hard to understand and hard to explain. it's kept me from being able to think of myself as a gnostic athiest due to lack of understand what on earth biologically/spiritually/whatever happend.

I've never experienced religious ecstasy but I have the kind of brain which produces subjective experiences such as 'seeing ghosts and sensing presences etc. This led me to an interest in that branch of neuroscience which is known as neurotheology.

God On The Brain is a BBC documentary which, I think, is a good place to start.

It begins with temporal lobe epilepsy, goes on to research indicating that the brain can produce experiences due to various causes and ends with certain practises which are used by those who want to have these experiences. Humans have been using various techniques for thousands of years, including taking psychoactive substances which are referred to as entheogens when used for this purpose.

Entheogen
Badger Badger Badger Badger Where are the snake and mushroom smilies?
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#7
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
Elation. It's called elation.

I was one of those who believed in those experiences. I rarely had them, because I was always skeptical of things, and thinking too much about it made me "miss out". lol BUT! People fell when I prayed for them (I was a preacher hahaha). LMFAO

They'd fall and I'd be thinking, "Why? I didn't feel anything coming out of my hand when I touched this person." Meh. People get excited. It's a psych thing.
Pointing around: "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out!"
Half Baked

"Let the atheists come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom of heathens belongs to people like these." -Saint Bacon
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#8
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
Hi, I know I'm 2.5 years late, but I just found this thread via Google. If the OP or anyone else would like a rational explanation of what happened, please post here and I'll write a longer post. It will be of interest to anyone who wants to know a bit more about this sort of experience.
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#9
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
(October 12, 2016 at 7:12 am)fatman Wrote: Hi, I know I'm 2.5 years late, but I just found this thread via Google. If the OP or anyone else would like a rational explanation of what happened, please post here and I'll write a longer post. It will be of interest to anyone who wants to know a bit more about this sort of experience.

Or you could start a new thread if your interested.
God thinks it's fun to confuse primates. Larsen's God!






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#10
RE: Religious ecstasy and the calling down of the Holy Spirit.
You found a 2.5 year-old necro-thread on an atheist forum via google?
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
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