your strangest spiritual experience

Arts, Philosophy, Spirituality & Wisdom
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Canuckster
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your strangest spiritual experience

Postby Canuckster » Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:58 pm

post them here,\

good or bad,
People say they all want the truth, but when they are confronted with a truth that disagrees with them, they balk at it as if it were an unwanted zombie apocalypse come to destroy civilization.

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Flying Eye Angle
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Postby Flying Eye Angle » Sun Sep 07, 2014 7:46 am

Not sure what to post. Some of them are not very believable. Will have to think about it

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Masato
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Postby Masato » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:55 am

Brave thread, Canuckster

I hear FEA on this one, most powerful spiritual experiences are hard to believe unless you actually had it yourself. More if the reader is not very spiritual... Also these kind of stories are very personal...

I think people who are close-minded to this sort of reality never allow themselves to have such experiences, and thus never having them enforces their belief that they are not possible. Yet for those who HAVE, it is undeniable and often among the most memorable experiences in their whole lifetime

I have been seriously debating starting a thread called 'Masato's Acid Stories' (as I took copious amounts for about 3 years of my life), but these too are also unbelievable, lol. But at least I'd have an excuse for them (LSD)

Pure spiritual experiences are even more revealing/daring to share.

I like this thread though, I will come and share when I have more time to think and write properly.

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Postby Canuckster » Sun Sep 07, 2014 11:24 am

I'm hoping to have a collection of true experiences, sometimes they are hard to quantify, and may help others to understand or break through too their own.
People say they all want the truth, but when they are confronted with a truth that disagrees with them, they balk at it as if it were an unwanted zombie apocalypse come to destroy civilization.

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Postby Canuckster » Sun Sep 07, 2014 11:25 am

Plus this forum might be the only place we can put our thoughts down and carry on a proper discourse without trolls destroying the thread.
People say they all want the truth, but when they are confronted with a truth that disagrees with them, they balk at it as if it were an unwanted zombie apocalypse come to destroy civilization.

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Postby Masato » Sun Sep 07, 2014 1:25 pm

Its also an interesting exercise to try to put these things into words...

Often imo a spiritual experience is just some kind of change or shift in the sensation of our being. Something CHANGED; before life felt like this, but after it felt like this.

How can you put it into words?

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Postby Canuckster » Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:58 pm

Exactly. I think it will be a good exercise if anyone bites.
People say they all want the truth, but when they are confronted with a truth that disagrees with them, they balk at it as if it were an unwanted zombie apocalypse come to destroy civilization.

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Postby Masato » Mon Sep 08, 2014 9:46 am

OK, since this is maybe the boldest thread yet here at MT, I thought as admin I should step up take the first hit. I have many spiritual stories, as attention in this area has been important to me most of my life. If others continue I will keep posting.

First of all, I'd like to note a big difference between spirituality and religion. The best I heard it summed up is by Joseph Campbell, who said; "My favourite definition of religion is mis-understood mythology."

The subject of the spiritual, religious, or philosophical person is always of the INTANGIBLE. The UN-DESCRIBABLE. Concepts of existence, spirit, or that which is not provable in the physical realm of the 5 senses.

Mythology is ANYTHING which helps orient a human being with this realm.

RELIGION is intense focus/commitment to a PARTICULAR MYTHOLOGY.


- so, I think if a thread like this is to work, we must be careful to define our terms, and understand that whatever words we use are only "fingers pointing at the moon" as Bruce Lee would say. "Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss out on all that heavenly glory!

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In this sense, I have respect for ALL religions and mythologies, as long as they are used in this way. If they help a person to find that source... if they help the person make sense of, and navigate the realm of the spirit, then it is good.

It is only fanaticism that I abhor. "Finger-cults" to return to Lee's analogy, lol



The first real spiritual experience I had was maybe around 10 or 11 (?). My mother was religious (protestant christian), and thus I grew up going a lot to protestant churches. Through one of the churches we discovered a SUMMER BIBLE CAMP.

It was on an island, all the kids and parents would take a boat to get there, and then the parents would leave and come to pick them up again in a week. The kids would sleep in cabins with 'counsellors' divided by age and gender.

The camp was fucking AWESOME... but was way more focussed on religion than we suspected. (No way in hell I would send my kids there now as a parent, lol) The goal basically of the camp was to try to 'save' as many kids as possible. So inserted throughout the week of fun activities, was an underlying powerful sermon. Quite terrifying now in hindsight to be honest, it was basically a brainwashing camp, lol

ANYWAYS - if you know protestant lingo, the key to 'being saved' was to 'accept christ into your heart'.

Well one night returning to our cabin from a campfire of songs and Jesus-talk... I went up to my top-bunk in the corner, and in a strange state of mind, I did just that (whatever 'that' means, lol - remember I was only 11)

But let me tell you, when fundamentalist people talk about this moment to you, it is no joke. I was rolling in an ecstasy that I have rarely felt since. Everyone else in the cabin was sleeping, and I remember having a really hard time keeping quiet, as I wanted to cry out in joy! I also have a strange memory of feeling so confined trying to stay quiet, that I floated through the roof (I was on the top bunk, the roof was very close) where I could breathe and see the stars.

Whatever it was, it changed me forever. It woke me up to a spiritual life. It made me want to try to BE GOOD, and it was suddenly super-easy to know what that was, and what it wasn't.


It wasn't more than a few years later that I stopped going to church. I couldn't handle 'Jesus-talk' anymore, and found the symbols and language I heard in the churches to be over-simplistic and silly. I was interested in the deeper realities of spirit, and not the fairytales people kept repeating over and over in church.

But no matter how much I might egotistically profess that I'm not a christian... I CANNOT deny that experience.

What was it? What actually happened there in that bunk bed? Was it REALLY the spirit of Christ/Jesus?? A self-induced rush of endorphins? A roasted-marshmallow high? An over active imagination? Did those bastards spike our hot chocolates??

-Or is there something about the symbology of the christian tradition that can actually function as some sort of gateway or key to the spiritual realm?

I do not know.

But I know it happened, and I know that to this day it brings me peace, reassurance, and strength.

Go figure.

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Postby Canuckster » Mon Sep 08, 2014 3:11 pm

Good post,

I think i should have named this thread differently.

I think it should be along the lines of something like most meaningful instead of strangest. Oh well, I'll be posting something here soon, like you said, it's hard to put into words and very personal.
People say they all want the truth, but when they are confronted with a truth that disagrees with them, they balk at it as if it were an unwanted zombie apocalypse come to destroy civilization.

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Postby Masato » Tue Sep 09, 2014 5:20 pm

OK here's another one that is more recent;

A couple summers ago I had rented a cottage for a week for the family in rural Ontario. I picked one that was on an island, so you had to take a small outboard motor-boat to get there.

Now I had almost zero experience with boating... I didn't have a license, and had some instructions how to start the motor I printed off the internet, lol. Regardless, I had managed to figure it out and was soon able to drive my family from the parking lot to the cottage OK.

A few days in, we were in the boat and it was starting to rain. We noticed a CAPSIZED CRAFT. I don't even remember what it was, some kind of sailboat.

Anyways they couldn't get it back up, and there were 2 KIDS in the water (with lifejackets), but they were cold and scared, crying. Too far to swim to shore.

I knew I had to help, but I was still really rusty with the whole driving-the-boat thing, and I was even scared that if I got too close I might mangle them up in the propeller, lol

So what happened? - Somehow, the thought of my grandfather came to my mind (he is deceased). I remembered when I was a child there was a cheesy paint-by-number painting in my grandfather's house of 2 fishermen in the rain in a boat not much smaller than the one I was in. My grandfather was a very capable old-school canadian, surely with many hours experience in small boats.

Suddenly, I felt as though I had channelled him or something; a wave of sudden confidence filled me, and I instantly felt like I was an expert boat handler.

I whirled around the capsized craft, got into position to pick up one kid, zoomed around and tucked in the right spot to pick up the 2nd kid, and took them to their cottage (by then others had arrived to help the men). Impossibly, I truly felt as though I had been doing this all my life... I was one with the boat, as comfortable and as natural as can be - for those moments, I was truly an expert!

As soon as I dropped the kids off however, the sensation left me, and I was suddenly awkward again in the boat for the rest of the week.

WHAT HAPPENED? A sudden adrenaline rush? Did I really channel my dead grandfather? Some kind of placebo effect?

Who the fuck knows. All I know is that it happened.

Go figure.

this is the painting that was in my grandfather's house (crazy that I actually found it just now, lol)
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