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spiritual experience vs. mental illness - how do you know?

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posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 08:37 AM
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So for people who are convinced their spiritual experiences are real, what convinces you? I was reading about schizophrenic delusions and those sound similar to my own experiences except that my experiences are brief and infrequent.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 08:48 AM
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Originally posted by cloudyday
So for people who are convinced their spiritual experiences are real, what convinces you? I was reading about schizophrenic delusions and those sound similar to my own experiences except that my experiences are brief and infrequent.


There is no such thing as a NON spiritual experience. There is no entirely material or physical experience. Matter does not experience. To believe otherwise is delusional and that is a symptom of mental illness.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 08:52 AM
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reply to post by cloudyday
 


Schizophrenia is a mental disorder. Being a disorder means it interferes with what is considered normal cognitive and emotional function in a person. There are multiple manifestations of the disorder, but they all point to an interference with daily life and function. Basically, it's harmful.

I will admit, some delusions are somewhat similar when paired with spiritual experiences, but with one major difference. Most spiritual experiences don't interfere with daily life or function. Often, these experiences empower someone to be a better person and actually can encourage increased participation and positive interaction with one's life.

LOL that being said, I guess it's all depending on your frame of reference, and what you would like to perceive either or both as. If they're the same, what we call a mental disorder could be someone misinterpreting a spiritual experience or having one that overwhelms them. On the other hand, a spiritual experience could just be a nice version of a delusion. You make a very good point. I had never really thought about it. Maybe people with schizophrenia are more in tune with another aspect of reality and just aren't equipped to process that amount or type of input.

Seems like a good toss up to me. I'd like to think the experiences I've had are positive and spiritual. They have lifted me up and empowered me to strive to be the person I am today, and I am grateful for them. I guess what I'm saying is...from my perspective, the two are different from each other.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 09:05 AM
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Good question. All those you call ill might bring judgement to you in front of God.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 09:17 AM
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Check out:

The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell
by Aldous Huxley

Very good read on the subject.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 09:21 AM
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Originally posted by cloudyday
So for people who are convinced their spiritual experiences are real, what convinces you? I was reading about schizophrenic delusions and those sound similar to my own experiences except that my experiences are brief and infrequent.


You are a spiritual being having a human experience, not the other way around. The world is the paint on the image. When living in the image of reality, you are also the painted image. The delusion is thinking the image is the true reality. Immortality is continuous life apart from death. Mortality is a life ending in death. Eternal existence is apart from either. It simply is.

God is. We are. Finding the spiritual truth within allows you to continue again. God is Eternal. Spirits are Immortal. Persons are mortal. The person lives and the spirit (soul) is judged. Jesus said, you must be born again. Either you are born into the water of morality (material world), or you are born again into the spirit (Eternal).

If you take the view that the spirit we seek is a mental condition, you are entirely correct. We must overcome the emotions of mortality in place of the eternal condition of the supreme good. When God is present, there can only be supreme good and peace. We are at rest. When God is absent, we are full of turmoil. The point of living is to overcome through spiritual alchemy. This either happens over many lifetimes, or it happens by speeding the process up in one. This is entirely comparable to the alchemical process of metal. Mental has one letter difference. In Hebrew, this is the letter NUN. Nun is represented in Ancient Hebrew pictographs as the seed. The seed is the essence of who you are.

An acorn is the oak tree enfolded by information. Your essence is the information of who you are. When the seed is ready for germination, it bears fruit by expressing your spirit in the tree of life. You must overcome to allow growth and embrace the eternal. The process will involve a great deal of trials, or mental conditions that allow the alchemical process to take place.

-Amalgamation - The extraction of precious metals from their ores by treatment with mercury. Remember, metal is mental.

-Calcination - To intensely heat - This is the consuming fire of God. The flaming sword was put at the tree of life to protect it from those who are full of pride against God. They cannot partake until the consuming fire has accomplished the work. The proper mental state is necessary.

-Coagulation - A solid that has been dissolved into a solvent reappears when that solvent is evaporated; or a chemical reaction may produce a new compound that is solid. The consuming fire transmutes our mental state into a solid foundation, leading to the next stage of mental preparation.

-Conjunction - The Coniunctio is the culmination of the alchemist’s opus, with both extroverted and introverted aspects. It is both the chemical and physical combination in which two substances come together to form a third substance with different properties, such as the fusion of molten metals, and the amalgams by the union of mercury with other metals. This is the common alchemical image of SOL & LUNA entering the mercurial fountain, representing the dissolving of gold and silver in mercury. Another chemical combination used by the alchemists is the union of mercury and sulphur to form red mercuric oxide, (Hg + S à HgS.)

It is important to stop here for a moment. This is the union of soul and spirit. We must gain union with God from love. All unions happen from love. All hate, anger, bias and so on must be removed in the process or we do not gain union in love.

-Impregnation - To interpenetrate or saturate thoroughly in order to produce a chemical or metallurgical crystalization or compound. God grows like a root. The gold that is produced in the process will germinate and grow within you. The supreme good is not far off.

-Precipitation - To fall or cascade as rain or snow, as is the aspect of the fertilization of the earth. God is close to those who love him. He cultivates us in love.

-Purification - We must die to live again. You will get old. Rebirth comes from the process. All life, including the earth, will go through the process.

-Solutio - The homogeneous mixture formed by this process.

-Sublimation - To cause to pass off from the solid to the vapor state by heating, and again to condense into solid form. Read John 3. Water to spirit.

"Sublimination is a critical universal function which works on every level of biologic and physical "reality" -- the biophysical and astrophysical, the instinctual, the subconsious, the "Unconscious", the historical, the
developmental, and economic and social, the expansive, the implosive, and the transformative."

- Volitilization - To cause to pass off into a vapor. The essence that transcends this reality.

Faith in the Son is key.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 09:23 AM
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Personally, I have had these experiences. I hope you can extract the evidence yourself:

* I rented a 1 bedroom apartment for a couple of years some 15 years ago. An occuring event was the "homecoming" of - apparently - a former owner of the apartment. Shelves was ripped out of the wall (could be anything from poltergeist activity to my dads inability to make them stick..). TV and radio turning on and off at random times during the day and night. And second most convincing: I had a computer, high tower model with an old fashioned flip-switch, that also got turned on and off. Most convincing, though, was over a three-night period, where the temperature would decrease dramatically. On the third night, the temp would be so low that dew would form on the windows - on the inside. At the peak of the experience, a presence could be sense in the bedroom, eyes piercing through the back of your head (no, I did not dare turn around), heavy breathing and - most signifiacantly - a very distinct smell of salt water. And in just a second, it would all stop. Unfortunately, I lived alone at the time, so I have no 3rd part witness to these events.
* On a more spiritual note, I went to a hypno therapy session a couple of years ago. During the session, while being "under", I was approached by an "angel" (no, not the Disney-kind) or light-being. It presented itself as "Amadiel" and when I got home I thought: Ah, come on, you're imagining things. However, Google revealed something entirely different: Amadiel an angel under - or an alias for - Gabriel. To this day, I have not been able to determine with certainty, that I have come across the name "Amadiel" earlier in my life, so for now, I consider this a genuine spiritual experience.
* The last experience of "something not of this world" is the house I lived in with my ex-wife. In general, an averagely haunted house, but not in a bad way. The geists we knew of, had no real issues with us being there, so we left them alone. (Oh, by the way, we were both able to see, sense and feel these sentients). We had a farmers help in the basement, Christian, young lad (about 25), a dog in the living room, black german shephard like pooch, and while my ex-wife was expecting our second child, a girl accompanied her almost everywhere she went, holding her hand, stroking her tummy, etc.

I have both a physical and mental evaluation, that states that I am sound of body and mind.

To me, that is enough proof.

I have several other experiences about this, though these are probably the most "exciting".

//Novaree



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 11:51 AM
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reply to post by cloudyday
 


Good question. I can say this, my father and one of my brothers both suffer Paranoid Schizophrenia and I have seen what it does. I can also say the many times of spiritual experiences I have had has made me wonder if I was suffering mental illness myself.

The thing with Schizophrenia is that it is never gone, spiritual experiences come and go and usually we can find witnesses who have experienced the same thing. Some people may pass that off as the power of suggestion or mass delusion, yet in all the instances of supernatural or paranormal phenomenon, usually they were experienced individually and only talked about later among the people who were around.

If you have enough presence of mind to investigate what is causing the event, then you probably are not Schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is a phenomenon that occurs solely within the mind of the sufferer. Supernatural and paranormal occur outside those who experience it. I mean it affects from the outside of the mind of the individual, so they do experience those things with all the five senses.

I will relate one experience I had from my childhood, that to this day I still remember it as though it just happened.

I was a sickly child prone to high fevers. One evening I was in bed with a fever that I had all weekend and my parents were not so caring to get medication for me. Well as I was lying there with the fever, I was getting more thirsty and called out for some water to drink. I heard my mother telling my brother to go get me a glass of water and he brought it to me. I drank some of it and was dizzy so I laid back down for a few minutes. After a few minutes I sat up again to drink more because I had put the glass on the side table. I reached for the glass and it was gone and I called out again for him to bring it back. I then heard my mother ask my brother if he had gotten me the water yet, and he said no, he had not brought me any at all and he was doing it now. But, I had taken water and drunk it.

People might say that was a fever induced hallucination, and it might have been, but I know that I had touched the glass of water and tasted the water, and felt the relief of the water. Call that what you will, I know what I experienced.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 11:59 AM
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reply to post by cloudyday
 


well... i have not seen angels or demons in flesh...
but i have witnessed the holy spirit burning within me...
and yes it is like fire
not like the "holy spirit goosebumps" that people talk about
i feel like they are just feel good moment indicators

the holy spirit is... hard to explain with words, i feel a comfortable burning within my chest and body... in a 50 - 60 degree room, i was in a t shirt and shorts and sweating ferociously while praying. that fire in my chest just engulfs my entire body and tears were flowing like the nile... the holy spirit is just so exhilarating...

is this a spiritual experience or a symptom of mental disorder?

God decides ;-)



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 12:01 PM
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Originally posted by BioStatistic
reply to post by cloudyday
 


Schizophrenia is a mental disorder. Being a disorder means it interferes with what is considered normal cognitive and emotional function in a person. There are multiple manifestations of the disorder, but they all point to an interference with daily life and function. Basically, it's harmful.

I will admit, some delusions are somewhat similar when paired with spiritual experiences, but with one major difference. Most spiritual experiences don't interfere with daily life or function. Often, these experiences empower someone to be a better person and actually can encourage increased participation and positive interaction with one's life.

LOL that being said, I guess it's all depending on your frame of reference, and what you would like to perceive either or both as. If they're the same, what we call a mental disorder could be someone misinterpreting a spiritual experience or having one that overwhelms them. On the other hand, a spiritual experience could just be a nice version of a delusion. You make a very good point. I had never really thought about it. Maybe people with schizophrenia are more in tune with another aspect of reality and just aren't equipped to process that amount or type of input.

Seems like a good toss up to me. I'd like to think the experiences I've had are positive and spiritual. They have lifted me up and empowered me to strive to be the person I am today, and I am grateful for them. I guess what I'm saying is...from my perspective, the two are different from each other.


The similarities are so striking, I can't help thinking that at a minimum spiritual experiences and schizophrenia are following the same pathways in our brains. I have been depressed off and on as long as I can remember, and I've gradually become aware of how much that affects my perception and reasoning. So I'm more suspicious of my perceptions than an emotionally settled person would need to be. But I'm not claiming that other people aren't experiencing something real.
edit on 25-11-2011 by cloudyday because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 12:24 PM
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reply to post by cloudyday
 






Originally posted by cloudyday
So for people who are convinced their spiritual experiences are real, what convinces you? I was reading about schizophrenic delusions and those sound similar to my own experiences except that my experiences are brief and infrequent.



Well first of all, spiritual experiences don’t have any adverse affects on the individual concerned, and if any anything they actually help. Schizophrenia on the other hand, is generally regarded as a negative experience, but there is one thing I have noticed when reading cases about it. And that is, that it seems to coincide with some type of spiritual and religious experience along with it; even from people who either never had any religious beliefs, or spiritual experiences prior. Many people assume that the religious experience itself, is just all part of the Schizophrenic condition/episode, but I’m starting to believe that the spiritual experiences are separate, and happen along side a person’s Schizophrenic episodes, and this invariable helps them through it.

In other words, I see these spiritual experiences, as God coming in to help people through these bad emotional and Schizophrenic/physiological episodes in theirs lives.


- JC


edit on 25-11-2011 by Joecroft because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 01:24 PM
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Originally posted by WarminIndy
reply to post by cloudyday
 


Good question. I can say this, my father and one of my brothers both suffer Paranoid Schizophrenia and I have seen what it does. I can also say the many times of spiritual experiences I have had has made me wonder if I was suffering mental illness myself.

The thing with Schizophrenia is that it is never gone, spiritual experiences come and go and usually we can find witnesses who have experienced the same thing. Some people may pass that off as the power of suggestion or mass delusion, yet in all the instances of supernatural or paranormal phenomenon, usually they were experienced individually and only talked about later among the people who were around.

If you have enough presence of mind to investigate what is causing the event, then you probably are not Schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is a phenomenon that occurs solely within the mind of the sufferer. Supernatural and paranormal occur outside those who experience it. I mean it affects from the outside of the mind of the individual, so they do experience those things with all the five senses.

I will relate one experience I had from my childhood, that to this day I still remember it as though it just happened.

I was a sickly child prone to high fevers. One evening I was in bed with a fever that I had all weekend and my parents were not so caring to get medication for me. Well as I was lying there with the fever, I was getting more thirsty and called out for some water to drink. I heard my mother telling my brother to go get me a glass of water and he brought it to me. I drank some of it and was dizzy so I laid back down for a few minutes. After a few minutes I sat up again to drink more because I had put the glass on the side table. I reached for the glass and it was gone and I called out again for him to bring it back. I then heard my mother ask my brother if he had gotten me the water yet, and he said no, he had not brought me any at all and he was doing it now. But, I had taken water and drunk it.

People might say that was a fever induced hallucination, and it might have been, but I know that I had touched the glass of water and tasted the water, and felt the relief of the water. Call that what you will, I know what I experienced.


That experience with the glass of water is similar to some of my experiences. I think different types of illnesses might cause our brains to malfunction so that imagination is perceived and remembered as reality. Schizophrenics are that way almost constantly, but other people might experience it once in a while. If we have religious symbols in our imagination then these can be in our delusions. At times our subconscious minds might know answers that can help us when they are revealed in dreams or delusions.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 01:29 PM
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reply to post by cloudyday
 


I know exactly what your talking about.
I have two personality disorders, not diagnosed, diagnosis is for the wealthy apparently.
i don't know if i believe anything.

either i saw some messed up visions from the future (Armageddon?) when i was a child, or i experienced something terrible either way, what happened was my minds way of coping. my mind split in two. i believe both, but can't surrender completely to one belief. i just watch as these things i dreamed about years ago happen on the news. laugh at myself and call myself crazy.

any thoughts?



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 01:42 PM
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reply to post by 85303
 

do the personalities switch ?



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 01:45 PM
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reply to post by icepack
 


not completely. alot of confusion at times about how i feel about certain things.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 01:50 PM
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reply to post by 85303
 


do you feel as if someone is whispering to you?
check your pms btw



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 01:52 PM
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reply to post by 85303
 

i think i remember similar conditions, like there is a "fight" in the head. maybe its the classical angel devil sitting on each shoulders.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 01:59 PM
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reply to post by DelayedChristmas
 


strange sensations in my body, confusing moments where my memory, body language, and facial expressions change. my attitude can shift quickly back and forth. just back and forth. i don't feel the preesence of a multitude of beings in or near me. just like im stuffed in a container with another being of my same substance.

i'd like to pm, but i'm too new or something.



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 02:01 PM
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Originally posted by icepack
reply to post by 85303
 

i think i remember similar conditions, like there is a "fight" in the head. maybe its the classical angel devil sitting on each shoulders.




except one has visions from the future, or is insane, and the other is just insane. lol



posted on Nov, 25 2011 @ 02:04 PM
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reply to post by 85303
 


if you say you are crazy, you're not crazy...
how crazy is the logic of this world! lol

ok email me: [email protected]



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