Answers needed

[Louis Chérubin]

Now...

If these words appeared in front of me and no one else was around to see them, and it never happened again, I would assume the most likely explanation is I had some sort of mental glitch: a hallucination, a daydream, a breakdown, whatever.

If I continued to see them and no one else could see them who was around me, I'd assume I had most likely got very serious mental problems with recurring delusions.

If everyone else could see the writing too, and people could look at it to verify it whenever they wanted, then we could talk about what was going on. It would still be impossible to conclude it was caused by supernature, although it would very likely turn science on its head at least.

The problem is, virtually all "personal experience" falls into the first two categories, and as such it is highly unreliable and most likely human error/imagination/delusion. There is never any evidence to verify. I've heard loads of people who are convinced their religion is true based on a single "experience". To be honest, the idea that you'd go through your life without having a weird experience that didn't literally happen would be very unlikely, and your delusions are going to play into the mythology you've been saturated with. I've had plenty of them, such as auditory and visual hallucinations. If I was of a superstitious inclination, I could have easily given these massive significance and used them to affirm my already held irrational beliefs.

I guess I was rather confused why you were talking about words appearing in front of you. Your last paragraph does help clarify your thought process for me, though. As I've already said, my belief in the existence of a supernatural power is not in any way derived from a feeling that my "religion is true based on a single 'experience.'" I can deduce that a supernatural power exists simply from verifiable facts presented by nature.

Now that I think of it, I don't think I have ever actually met someone like you described. Am I hugely misunderstanding you, or is this a UK phenomenon?   It could be a serious epidemic of hallucinations!