Whats your mystical experience? Everyone's gotta have one or more. I've
had a couple, and I'll share them. Add your own too.

In highschool, I was sent to a Pentecostal Bible-Thumping place. I
really didnt like it. Still, boys will be boys, and there was this very
pretty girl I wanted to be with. She told me that she was going to some
bible-recitation thing after school, and so, I decided to go too!
[surprise, surprise, surprise].

It was the usual "Fire & Brimstone Revival" talk, complete with a
rockin' chorus, jesus-waves, and an overly dramatic "altar call". Since
I was attending that school, I was used to this kind of production. Seen
it lots of times. No biggie, it was tolerable if I could get Debbie's
phone number.

Somewhere in the middle of the evening, during a "quiet moment", someone
started squealing, grunting, shrieking, garbling something
incomprehensible - she was speaking in tongues. Now, let me be straight,
I've heard 'speaking in tongues' nearly every day in that place - and
they were all 'bogus'. THIS was different. THIS was real. The woman
talked like a possessed demon. Thats what it sounded like. She was
convulsing in an epileptic fit, she flopped to the ground and ppl ran
over to help her. Then, it happened. The auditorium filled with a slight
mist, a gentle shimmering.

In a moment she sat up, the mist dissapeared, and all was well.

--- Maybe it was "epilepsy", maybe it was just an emotional overwhelming
fit, who knows, but, I can attest, this was real.

And in the end, I didnt get Debbie's phone number.

I’ve had several ‘mystical’ experiences over the course of my life. My
earliest experiences was a very young child, probably around 5 or 6
years old, I’m not certain about the age, it could have been younger
than that.

When I was a child I lived in a house that had a large yard in a very
hilly area. I was standing on the top of the highest hill. From their
I could look down at the roof of the house and basically view the entire
neighborhood from an almost birds-eye view.

It was a warm sunny summer day. I was standing there looking out over
the neighborhood and clapping my hands together, by swinging my arms
first in font of me, and then behind me. Each time my hands would come
together I could feel the skin of my palms and fingers touching each
other.

I wasn’t clapping them together to make a clapping sound. I was
actually focusing on clapping them together very softly and my focus was
on having them match together perfectly like a mirror. So I was
concentrating on the feeling of the hands touching each other. This is
just something a little kid might do I guess.

I was doing this for quite a while and evidently it the monotony of the
activity caused me to fall into a kind of meditative state of some sort.
As I stood there swinging my arms back and forth touching my hands
together I was also looking at the world around me.

Then all of sudden I felt a rush. Something really strange happened.
It was almost like an ‘out of body’ experience, although I never really
felt like I was out of my body. Although in some ways I did. It’s
very hard to explain a sensation like this.

The first most profound notion was that the distinction of where my body
ends and where the rest of the world begins simply vanished. I had an
extremely profound sense that I was everything and everything was me.
My physical individuality seemed to just vanish our from around me. I
could no longer feel my feet on the ground. It was like my sense of
body just continued right on through to include the entire earth and sky
and everything. The feeling of being physically individual just
vanished.

I could still feel my arms swinging back and forth and my hands touching
together, but it was like I no longer had control over them. It was
like as if they were just doing their own thing and I was merely an
observer.

My vantage point of all of this remained close to where my head was
located, and this is why I hesitate to call it an ‘out of body’
experience. However, there was a sense that I could look straight down
at my body and watch my hands clapping together both in front of me and
behind me. That would have been a physically impossible view.
However, it also could have been an imagined image too. It just seemed
so real to me at the time.

The feeling was WONDERFUL. There was a profound feeling of love and
acceptance and safety associated with this experience. I genuinely felt
like I was one with everything, and therefore nothing was left to be a
separate threat. This wasn’t like a ‘logical conclusion’ it was more
like an intuitive notion I just knew that I was everything and that
everything was me. What could threaten me if that was the case?

And this wasn’t an egotistical or lonely feeling at all. It was more of
a feeling of being accepted by the universe rather than egotistically
thinking of the universe being me.

Anyway, something drew me out of it and I came crashing back to reality
and snapped back into my normal confined feelings of being an individual
being that ends at my extremities. And then I could hear my mother
calling my name. So I guess her voice calling me is what pulled me out
of the meditative state.

I have had similar experiences to this at other times in my life where
I’ve felt like I’ve melded into my surroundings. But never quite as
complete as I did on that day. It was very profound to me at the time.
An experience that I have never forgotten.

Wow, that is really an awesome experience, James.

Fun topic. Mike was that your 'first' mystical experience?
Abra, interesting that you were so young and experienced the essence
of what would ultimatley become so much a part of your belief system.

Me, I've had more mystical experiences than most poeple would believe.
My entire life has been frought with them. Sometimes, even I'm amazed
that I'm an athiest. LOL

I will tell you the strangest one. It was, the longest experience of
a time distortion that I have ever had. Most are only seconds. This
one lasted, well to be honest, can't say for sure, maybe 10 to 15
minutes. The best part of the experience is that others were involved.

Scene: Mid to late 70's 'disco'
Place: Chicago

A girlfriend and I were doing the disco thing, a couple bars, dancing, a
couple drinks. I was not a fan of alcohal so I was not drunk. It was
about 2 a.m. We left the bar. I was parked on the other side of the
street and down about half a block. We crossed the street, a street
light flickerd and my girlfriend jumped, gasped and grabbed my arm.
"What's wrong?"
"that was the biggest rat I've ever seen" she said
At that moment a rat came out of nowhere and ran in front of us, she
jumped again, I just let it run past, and it was huge.
"A relative?" I asked jokeingly. She was frozen to her spot, "no the
same one" she said. But it passed us twice in seconds, running fast
going from left to right both times, only I did not see it the first
time. Ok, so we began to walk when I suddenly stopped and turned toward
the street. "What's wrong?"
She asked. I looked at her and the pointed to my car that was now
directly in front of us. She was gripping my arm really tight, you see
we hadn't taken more that a couple steps after crossing the street, but
there we were down the block in front of my car. We laughed, what else
could we do? She asked if I was ok to drive. I said I had three drinks
since 9 oclock, I was fine. I let her in and got in from the stree
side. In Chicago, then, the streets were all tight parallel parking.
Both sides of the street were lined with cars so it was virtually a
tight two way street to drive in. To get out I had to back up, turn,
nose forward, back up and then I could get out. She was chatting, then,
about the evening, and I checked my mirror, then turned to look, the
steet was clear, I mean clear as far back as I could see. I pulled out,
and suddenly there was a car, and everything, the two cars the the
street became transcendant, that's the only word I can use to fit. And
the car that was behind me, was now passing through MY SPACE. There was
the sound of someone screaming, but it wasn't me or my friend, and a
sound like a roar and the smell of, what I guessed to be eshaust. I
had stopped immediately when I 'felt' the presence of the other car so I
was not moving. There was no doubt that this car would hit us. It
COULD NOT pass me, I was in the middle of the street, if it tried to
pass it would hit the parked cars on the other side, but it was going
too fast and was so close it had to hit us. I instinctivle held my arm
and hand out to brace my passenger, but she had already grabbed my arm.
Then there was a screech and the smell tire burnes. Suddenly all was
normal. The car that should have hit up had passed through us and was
sitting sideways accross the two lanes. I was behind him my front bumber
about two feet from the drivers side door. I looked at the driver. His
mouth was open, his eyes wide, he shook his head at me as if in
disbelief and looked around, got a bearing, righted his car and slowley
proceeded down the street. I looked at my passenger, "Are you alright?"
She was very pale and wide-eyed, I thought she might get sick. I said,
"Is what just happened what I think just happened?" She said, "just
drive". Several blocks away I asked her "Do you know what happened back
there?". She said "No." I asked her if she could tell me what she
thought happened? "no". "Well can you tell me what you saw or how you
felt?" "no, I don't want to talk about it, just drive". We were silent
the rest of the way.

Years later I asked her about that night. Of course she remembered it.
I asked if she could finally talk about it, tell me her 'story'. She
did. Everything that I just told you, she verified. She didn't believe
me when I told her it was true. She was at my house, so I pulled out a
journal I had written about that night, to prove it. She would never
discuss it again.

Red: That was the COOLEST story I have heard! That was really amazing.
Thanks! Sure beats my Debbie-Dissed-Me story.

Anyone else?