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My Spiritual Journey, Part 1
(In which Ricochet members wonder what on earth made this man join this community over five years ago.)
I was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
There were two solid benefits: One, I was raised without any political or social programming, detached from worldly affairs, making me more able later to assess critically what I learned from “authoritative” sources.
This is why the Kingdom Halls of Jehovah’s Witnesses seem to have no windows. They detach themselves from this world, awaiting the next after Armageddon.
Later, living in Sacramento when Rush Limbaugh first went on the air before going national, I could hear him as he was: smart, funny, engaging, genuine, and persuasive. We knew he would be big once he informed his audience he was going national.
Two, I was raised with The Truth, which turned into something they did not want.
I recall at the age of 15 asking the elders in the church questions like, “So Cain and Able married their sisters, right?” and “What does Paul mean in 2 Corinthians 12:1-5 when he talks about a man caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body?”
Wait, there are at least three heavens? Why? What makes them different? And out of the body? What did that mean?
Such questions did not go over well. I was expected to trust in the authority of my betters and the text itself. As they interpreted it.
I thus became suspicious of texts and authorities, and began wondering, How does one know the truth? There are so many religions saying they have it. How does one determine which is true?
I was a science and math guy. And I loved classic science fiction, like Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, Ellison, Niven. I had respect for the scientific method and empirical approaches to truth, or at least the best case for a truth.
In my teens, I started leaning towards agnosticism, even though I liked Jesus; however, I was curious that he was portrayed as having little or no sense of humor. But I was aware by then that, even though I was certain of the historical reality of Jesus, I was not that sure of the authorities and interpreters of his life and words.
I asked my mother once why miracles only happened in the Bible. She had no answer. That’s just the way it is, she said.
I prayed and asked for guidance, and some kind of inner connection with Spirit and Jesus. But nothing happened.
I wanted a spiritual experience. I wanted my spiritual foundation to be built, not on external authorities, priests or ministers, not on a text, whoever the translating authority, but on direct personal experiences.
I expanded my reading to other teachings, other religions, both Western and Eastern: Christian Catholicism and Protestantism, Islamic and Sufiism, Hinduism and Buddhism. I read their texts and translations. I asked for some kind of spiritual experience with each.
Although none gave me what I sought, I did get a growing sense that there was some truth in each, at least to the extent where Divine Love is the focus.
I also continued to be the target of the progressive education in the 1970s. As a sophomore in high school. I was put into Honors History (no political history, but we did learn about the Bantus of South Africa) and Honors English (where we learned no grammar, but were encouraged to be “Creative” and do our own thing).
In a college Spanish class I first learned about prepositions, which somehow had been skipped over throughout my Honors Student years. I was furious at my deprived education.
Almost every student in our Honors English class smoked pot, used mescaline, and took Black Beauties (amphetamines). I was the naïve one, the “good” boy, so I tentatively smoked pot for the first time.
By the time I was 18, I was ready to experiment with psychedelics. Still reading and searching.
At 19, I had a couple of spiritual experiences, both drug-related. Of course, I was aware that drugs corrupt perceptions and judgment. But the experiences triggered a kind of Call of Soul to return to God, if that makes any sense.
I was the odd guy with my “friends” (drug users don’t really have friends) who would take LSD and say to them, “This has something to do with God.” And they would respond, “Shut up Mark and watch the music come out of the speakers.”
I began reading about those who had had similar drug experiences and like me began a search for God and Truth.
I thought about finding some kind of spiritual guide. But the notion of going to India and finding a guru did not sit well with me. I did not want to withdraw from the world and live in an ashram. I wanted spiritual experiences. And I wanted them in the real world.
After reading Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, I found myself standing outside the Ananda Self-Realization Fellowship one day, but some inner nudge prevented me from going in.
All I knew was this: My spiritual foundation could not be based on texts or on external authorities, despite the fact that I believed such texts could be inspired by God. In fact, I began to see in all my reading and study that Spirit worked through many sources. But none fit me.
Again, my spiritual foundation had to built on my direct spiritual experiences. For example, by this time I was beginning to see the possibility that past lives were real, but I would not consider going to some past-life reader as an authority, or simply believe based on stories in a book or someone else’s memory. I had to have my own direct experience with past lives, and where possible, externally verifiable. I had some empirical sense, even if the evidence and conclusions could not be proved to anyone else.
I reached a low point one night when I was 20 years old. Reading felt like a waste of time.
I went outside, looked up at the stars and said out loud, “I know you are real. I know Truth exists. I’m ready for it. Give it to me.”
Nothing happened. No thunder, no lightning, no voice. I returned to my home feeling dejected.
A day or two later, I found a brochure on the hallway floor at my community college. It had a bunch of weird words, and I thought, “Here’s another one that has the answer.”
I was hitchhiking home (mid-’70s, remember), and I happened to be picked up by a young man who was a member of that particular religion. He showed me some materials and said that there would be a talk about it at the Sacramento Public Library this coming Saturday.
I decided to go, and I listened to the woman representing that religion. Her words were intriguing, especially when she talked about certain spiritual exercises one could try at home to connect with the Holy Spirit. (Something like the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which did nothing for me.)
But what really got me was the light in her eyes. She had something, something I wish I had. I went ahead and bought a couple cheap paperback books, picked up a membership brochure, and took them home.
The first book fed my mind, and connected some of the same ideas I was having. That I was a Soul with a body, not a body with a Soul. The possibility of learning directly, inwardly, through dreams. Having direct experiences with past lives.
But it was the second book, where the writer spoke directly to the reader, that opened something, and by the end, for the first time, I felt real possibility.
I practiced a simple, recommended spiritual exercise, and felt a spark. Of what I did not yet know. But it was enough for me to send for a trial membership. One that required two years of introductory study in order to acquire personal spiritual experiences that would prove to me that miracles were real, and they could happen in my daily life. If, that is, I was willing to take full accountability for my words, thoughts, and actions.
All things happen for a reason. Shortly after making that initial commitment, but before the initial materials arrived, I was arrested for a serious drug charge and placed in the Sacramento County Jail.
Over the next few weeks, I had a series of amazing spiritual miracles that transformed me.
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If you want to read more, Like this post and I will continue.
There is a reason I am a longtime Ricochet member. I have more in common with conservatives and libertarians, as well as very smart, devoted Christians and Jews. In fact, the nature of my spiritual beliefs has much in common with those who have experienced living, miraculous experiences with the Holy Spirit.
So please bear with me, no matter how wacky this seems to get. Consider, at minimum, it will be very entertaining as your assumptions about me get undermined–or confirmed.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I asked a question, and you gave an answer. The answer was clear, and I even agree with it. It was a good epistemology. These other confusions don’t matter. (I hope.)
Okay. It will be intersting to see how or if the posts that follow drive your mind crazy with questions.
Here is one of my very own early on instructive experiences.
It is my first memory.
I had to be about six to eight months old.
I was lying in the backseat of my parent’s new Ford, a shiny 1952 edition.
I was on a soft and pretty and clean baby blanket.
My parents had the car in the alley behind where we lived. Some tall cotton woods shadowed the back seat.
My parents were in the front seat laughing.
I felt good. But I was also caught up inside an inner drama that had me captivated.
In that drama, I was an individual, but I could not tell you if I was a man or woman, nor did I know my age.
I was frantically searching thru rubble. My entire environment was one of dust & smoke in the air, & blocks & blocks of rubble.
My mind was like a screen split in two – on the one hand, I was a baby with loving parents and a pristine, sunshine-y world with laughter & joy.
On the other hand I was an anxious tormented soul who was looking for something and was hungry, cold and unwell. I felt death all around me and in certain ways I had a wish to die.
I knew I had to chose between those two realities. Both felt as real as the other. And how could I deserve the happier reality?
But a window of grace hit me. So without more delay I seized the day and left the bad world for the new world.
My mom would tell people how happy a baby I was. Soon that happy baby became a happy child. I lacked the needed vocabulary to say, “Well, Mom, I’d be an idiot to be unhappy. After all, given how Chicago in a middle class 1950’s era of tall trees & streets filled with baby boomer children to be friends with was an improvement over what I’d experienced before.”
My mom would often tell me that I was too smart for my britches but that once I got to school, my teachers would help me figure things out.
Unfortunately early on in 1st grade, a lovely Catholic nun, announced that there was such a belief known as reincarnation. And that it involved the thoughts that one had experienced life on earth before.
She added quite sternly: if someone had the misfortune to believe this, that they would go to hell and burn forever.
This was a person who was usually smiling and happy. The terrifying sternness with which she addressed this subject made me shut down that memory. Prior to this instruction, I would think about it a lot. It did not surface much again until I finally had aged out of 12 years of Catholic schooling.
This interaction of my experience against a dogmatic teaching is one of the many things that has made it hard for me to be desirous of having a relationship with organized religion.
Fascinating! I am sensitive to such comtrol factors. When I ask such people, “How do you know?” they eoither quote a text or some authority, or simply say, “I just know!”
I usually respond, “Well, hope that works out for you.”
Power vs Love is the continual fork in the road. So many choose power over others, directly or indirectly. As you will see, in my view he was practicing a form of black magic.
Please continue telling us about your journey.
BTW, I’ve been working my way through James Rosen’s Scalia: Rise to Greatness.
Rosen does a fine job in the first few chapters of showing how Scalia set the foundation of his life on Catholicism.
It’s a good book, except I couldn’t help feeling annoyed every time he needed to tell us that he was including information that no one else ever had.
I am not at all sure who the “he” in the sentence I emboldened above actually refers to, Mark.
Who do you mean?
That makes it easier in an electronic edition to search for new information. “First time”
Oops. That should be she, the nun. Pronouns matter.
Just wondering what would qualify as an experience. I had been a rather lukewarm cradle Catholic, but at a point in my life I felt that it could not go on as it was. It had become too overwhelming. I remember the exact moment I told God – this is all up to You – I cannot do this anymore. This moment was followed by a profound calm. I had to return to the situation, but I felt strength and a peace I did not have before. I have grown in my faith since then and now feel a personal connection when I pray. Is that what you are looking for?
Sounds like a spiritual experience to me.
You bigot! Did you even ask the nun for their pronouns?