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Crystal1414
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06 Oct 2020, 7:29 pm

I'm pretty sure I had a very profound spiritual experience when I was 18. I have been continuing to have them.

I got really into god. I wanted to tell everyone how great he was. I was in a hotel once and I wanted to write notes to everyone about god. I felt like I had some special purpose that god gave me. Sometimes I stayed up and I thought I could feel his presence. This lasted for a few months. I went to church and started speaking in tongues. It was my first time going.

I felt very drawn to churches and religious imagery. I was obsessed with rosaries for a while. Then it just went away. I never experienced it at that degree again.

Now I can feel his presence sometimes. Also sometimes I still feel like I have a special purpose. I feel that right now.



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06 Oct 2020, 7:42 pm

Ah. Yes. It is real. You have felt the Holy Spirits presence. Your spiritual experience is one known as being "Born again".
Feel free to ask if you want to know more.


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06 Oct 2020, 10:08 pm

Matthew 7:7 reads:

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."


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13 Oct 2020, 8:29 pm

Crystal1414 wrote:
I'm pretty sure I had a very profound spiritual experience when I was 18. I have been continuing to have them.

I got really into god. I wanted to tell everyone how great he was. I was in a hotel once and I wanted to write notes to everyone about god. I felt like I had some special purpose that god gave me. Sometimes I stayed up and I thought I could feel his presence. This lasted for a few months. I went to church and started speaking in tongues. It was my first time going.

I felt very drawn to churches and religious imagery. I was obsessed with rosaries for a while. Then it just went away. I never experienced it at that degree again.

Now I can feel his presence sometimes. Also sometimes I still feel like I have a special purpose. I feel that right now.

I'm not gonna try to discount your experiences. But Religious experiences are extremely common in mania. I remember I had a Manic episode a few years ago where I thought I had reached enlightenment. Ultimately, I can't tell you rather or not it is real or mania induced, that is for you to decide for yourself. I know during manic episodes I often feel a great sense of purpose. It's possible it is a manic episode. Apparently they can last for months at a time. It's ultimately up to you what you do with this information.


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14 Oct 2020, 2:49 am

I had a handful of deeply spiritual experiences in similar age.
They changed me - put me on some new tracks.
I don't know weather they were some Higher Power or just my tormented psyche but the track they put me on - a track of absolute honesty at least with myself, where the ugliest truth is valued way above the prettiest pretending - was something I really needed on my way to healing.

Try to tell by the fruit rather than the roots. Do these experiences help you grow as a human being? Do they adress something important in your life?


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14 Oct 2020, 5:27 am

I think I read that Mother Teresa's entire life of serving the poorest of the poor in India was sparked by one religious experience she had when she was young. And she never had another one.

I have had spiritual experiences which have changed my life.

As magz says, it really doesn't matter whether they are "real" or not. What matters is what you do with them or what you use them for.


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14 Oct 2020, 8:38 am

People undergoing such a 'revelation' must ask themselves if their new-found spirituality glorifies G^D; and by 'glorify', I mean does it put G^D in the center of your life to such a great extent that you lose your sense of self in His presence?  Because if the answer is 'no' then your experience may not be of the Holy Spirit, but of something (or someone) more down-to-Earth.

Be careful; if the only outward sign of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the apparent ability to Speak In Tongues -- an outward display of glossolalia in a religious setting -- then it may be an affectation rather than an actual gift.  Speaking In Tongues is perhaps the easiest of the Gifts to fake.

The 'Tongues' spoken on that Day of Pentecost were real human languages.  If you are speaking an actual human language that you have never learned, then it is likely a gift of the Holy Spirit; but if it is just a series of nonsense syllables, then likely not.  There is no evidence that tongues-speech in Acts 2 (or elsewhere) served an evangelistic purpose -- the content of tongues-speech was of the mighty deeds of G^D.

Speaking In Tongues is prayer, praise, and self-edification -- its purpose is not to draw attention to the speaker.  Only when the utterances are correctly interpreted and agreed upon by two or more witnesses should anyone believe that they are gifts of the Holy Spirit.

When G^D speaks to people in a language they cannot understand, it is a form of punishment for unbelief.  It signifies his anger.  Incomprehensible speech will not guide or instruct or lead to faith and repentance, but only confuse and destroy.  Thus, if outsiders or unbelievers come in and you speak in a language they cannot understand, you will simply drive them away.  You will be giving a "sign" to unbelievers that is entirely wrong, so when you come together, if anyone speaks in a tongue, be sure there is interpretation.  Otherwise the tongue-speaker should be quiet in the church.

Prophecy, on the other hand, is a sign of G^D's presence with believers when unbelievers are also present in order that the unbelievers may see this as a sign and thereby come to Christian faith.

Go in peace.



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14 Oct 2020, 9:01 am

Fnord wrote:
People undergoing such a 'revelation' must ask themselves if their new-found spirituality glorifies G^D; and by 'glorify', I mean does it put G^D in the center of your life to such a great extent that you lose your sense of self in His presence?  Because if the answer is 'no' then your experience may not be of the Holy Spirit, but of something (or someone) more down-to-Earth.

Be careful; if the only outward sign of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the apparent ability to Speak In Tongues -- an outward display of glossolalia in a religious setting -- then it may be an affectation rather than an actual gift.  Speaking In Tongues is perhaps the easiest of the Gifts to fake.

The 'Tongues' spoken on that Day of Pentecost were real human languages.  If you are speaking an actual human language that you have never learned, then it is likely a gift of the Holy Spirit; but if it is just a series of nonsense syllables, then likely not.  There is no evidence that tongues-speech in Acts 2 (or elsewhere) served an evangelistic purpose -- the content of tongues-speech was of the mighty deeds of G^D.

Speaking In Tongues is prayer, praise, and self-edification -- its purpose is not to draw attention to the speaker.  Only when the utterances are correctly interpreted and agreed upon by two or more witnesses should anyone believe that they are gifts of the Holy Spirit.

When G^D speaks to people in a language they cannot understand, it is a form of punishment for unbelief.  It signifies his anger.  Incomprehensible speech will not guide or instruct or lead to faith and repentance, but only confuse and destroy.  Thus, if outsiders or unbelievers come in and you speak in a language they cannot understand, you will simply drive them away.  You will be giving a "sign" to unbelievers that is entirely wrong, so when you come together, if anyone speaks in a tongue, be sure there is interpretation.  Otherwise the tongue-speaker should be quiet in the church.

Prophecy, on the other hand, is a sign of G^D's presence with believers when unbelievers are also present in order that the unbelievers may see this as a sign and thereby come to Christian faith.

Go in peace.

That's valuable.
Putting one's own spirituality or religiousness and the wow experience of it over The God (or The Good if you're not really theist) is one of many traps on that route, described by mystics from a variety of religions.


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Fnord
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14 Oct 2020, 9:09 am

magz wrote:
Fnord wrote:
People undergoing such a 'revelation' must ask themselves if their new-found spirituality glorifies G^D; and by 'glorify', I mean does it put G^D in the center of your life to such a great extent that you lose your sense of self in His presence?  Because if the answer is 'no' then your experience may not be of the Holy Spirit, but of something (or someone) more down-to-Earth.

Be careful; if the only outward sign of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the apparent ability to Speak In Tongues -- an outward display of glossolalia in a religious setting -- then it may be an affectation rather than an actual gift.  Speaking In Tongues is perhaps the easiest of the Gifts to fake.

The 'Tongues' spoken on that Day of Pentecost were real human languages.  If you are speaking an actual human language that you have never learned, then it is likely a gift of the Holy Spirit; but if it is just a series of nonsense syllables, then likely not.  There is no evidence that tongues-speech in Acts 2 (or elsewhere) served an evangelistic purpose -- the content of tongues-speech was of the mighty deeds of G^D.

Speaking In Tongues is prayer, praise, and self-edification -- its purpose is not to draw attention to the speaker.  Only when the utterances are correctly interpreted and agreed upon by two or more witnesses should anyone believe that they are gifts of the Holy Spirit.

When G^D speaks to people in a language they cannot understand, it is a form of punishment for unbelief.  It signifies his anger.  Incomprehensible speech will not guide or instruct or lead to faith and repentance, but only confuse and destroy.  Thus, if outsiders or unbelievers come in and you speak in a language they cannot understand, you will simply drive them away.  You will be giving a "sign" to unbelievers that is entirely wrong, so when you come together, if anyone speaks in a tongue, be sure there is interpretation.  Otherwise the tongue-speaker should be quiet in the church.

Prophecy, on the other hand, is a sign of G^D's presence with believers when unbelievers are also present in order that the unbelievers may see this as a sign and thereby come to Christian faith.

Go in peace.
That's valuable.
Thank you.
magz wrote:
Putting one's own spirituality or religiousness and the wow experience of it over The God (or The Good if you're not really theist) is one of many traps on that route, described by mystics from a variety of religions.
Getting caught up in the endorphin rush of enthusiastic worship is always a risk; which is why I prefer the more staid and 'boring' services of the Lutheran, Methodist, or Presbyterian traditions -- no one there is going to slap me on the forehead and expect me to be "Slain In The Spirit".