Quantum physics may explain some "spiritual experiences" Who can comprehend anything past the 5th dimension? Education is important, however, my MD/PhD mentor used to say, 'the smarter we are, the dummer we are'. I didn't 'get it' a decade ago. Now I am dumb. After all the experiments, after all the HPLC, and dead rat brains, we're so f__kin dumb. Ancient culture and cultures with shaman have lived a corrolary, without experiments, for centuries.

Psychology explains spiritual experiences much better than quantum physics.

Bingo. Associating spiritual experience with quantum mechanics and failing to mention psychology is a BIG red flag.
We've come a long way in identifying which parts of the brain cause spiritual experiences. Combine that with the fact that research outside of the brain has failed to identify any sources of spiritual experiences, and the most likely conclusion is not very difficult to draw.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2014 11:39AM by kimball.

I'm a skeptic and a scientist, but there's certainly more to reality than what we can generally perceive.

There's no magical hippy Jesus or his invisible omnipotent kosher father however, of that I can be sure.

Of course, we only have 5 rudimentary senses. We are missing so much of the natural world.

I've had many things happen in my life which were thought of as spiritual experiences at the time. But now I'm able to assign natural meaning to them.

It seems like I have more "spiritual experiences" now than I did as a Mormon. I attribute that to a more meaningful life. But sometimes I stop in my tracks and laugh and think, "wow, if I were still mormon that would have been a real testimony builder." But now I can see the natural phenomenon of it and it's a testament to life.

In some cases I think it's just an all too human attempt to feel good about something. But I also think that we try to make connections with nature and the universe. Just because these connections are not well understood does not mean that they are not valid. Finally, it may be the beginning stages of the next phase of evolution. Our brains are continuing to develop but we don't understand all of the implications just yet.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104240746

it's a chemical released in your brain. The most spiritual experience I've ever had was during meditation. It made me realize that praying and 'receiving' an answer was pretty much the same thing; a release of that chemical.

minnieme Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story
> Id=104240746
>
> it's a chemical released in your brain. The most
> spiritual experience I've ever had was during
> meditation. It made me realize that praying and
> 'receiving' an answer was pretty much the same
> thing; a release of that chemical.


You could also try drinking copious amounts of alcohol.

I just glanced at that article and misread LSD as LDS!

paddy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just glanced at that article and misread LSD as
> LDS!

I often do! Also:


'The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity'

Only $13.98, gets a 5-star rating -- Jan Irvin has produced a most thoughtful and valuable account of debate around the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in early Christianity.

EXPLAINS EVERYTHING, I reckon...

This is my 2 cents and hope not to offend any but to encourage some (especially atheists) to study what is available and prove it a hoax or true. (There doesn't seem to be a big penalty for not knowing the truth (99% probably do not know) --- no hell) My key spiritual experiences while a Mormon were where I was really helped by avoiding an obvious danger (after being warned) and by helping me find peace. In both of these instances I heard voices talk to me telepathically one I was sure was my dead mother. I also had numerous promptings/impressions at work and in life in general that I believed helped a lot. Some may say it was my own subconscious which took in and processed the information I was bringing in unconsciously then provided it back to me. For about a year I accepted that that may have been true ---- we as a society do not totally understand our brains.

However, because of the telepathic voice communications I became interested in these psychics, mediums, etc. that make a living by talking to the dead. I read a number of books and started practicing meditation and psychic exercises to improve my abilities to have access to my intuition and spirit. Well in the last 8 days I have had over 30 "spirit experiences". Almost all were where I asked "what unusual will I see/experience today?" ---- after which, on 7 of 8 days, I received some quick pictures that came to my mind or one large bang that came to me while I was meditating ----- showing me unique cars I would see that day, how people I would meet would dress, what scene I would see, and what sound I would hear. Over 30 were accurate as well as the sound (trains hooking up rail cars), which was a first for me other than telepathic voices. These impressions/visions were of future events ----- so my subconscious can tell the future??? I think not! The main thing I learned from this is that we are not ALONE ----- there are people on the other side helping us if we are open to them!

No I am not a TBM or any other ism. I believe in a God/creator but not sure about the bible or Christ although the concept of loving and serving others is definitely what God has in mind for us to learn. This stuff is available at public libraries ------- books by psychics, mediums, even near death experiences but I do discount people only being in the next life for a short period of time say (I think some still keep their mortal beliefs for a while and may misinterpret what they see or experience) versus dead people who have been there for a while and not coming back to earth!

You do realize, I hope, that if you have documented this (not hard to do when the specifics of the visions are so clear) you would have won $1,000,000 from James Randi.

From what I have seen of James Randi's tests the 'supposedly psychics' could not use their method as they were custom to. For example, palm readers could only see pics of the hands not hold the actual person's hand. It's been a while so I can't remember all the examples I saw of putting unrealistic restraints on psychics. I have only been working with this stuff for a few months. If I get some control over it I will certainly consider Randi's challenge. I have not been able to call the exact numbers in the market yet but have not given up. Today I was .03% off the exact Dow increase but further off the other 3 indexes I usually invest in. Another psychic stated he sometimes got roulette numbers but never profited from it ----- one time 81 hit in his mind so he immediately bet on 81 for about 5 times in a row. Then after he gave up 81 hit 3 times in a row!

I am currently getting local things I see. One of the pics I got was on tv. I wish I could have got the recent downing of the Plane in Russia ---- but I don't seem to have any control over what I get ---- yet.

Sorry to burst your bubble...

Roulette wheels only go to 36.

Oops it must have been 18 ----- I never played and it was from a library book that I read over a month ago. No wonder he never won!

I truly hope you gain control over it, or even manage to record proof of the ability without having first gained control (using proper double-blinding, sample size and null-case comparisons, of course). This would be a major breakthrough for the scientific community.

With 3 more incidents recorded today so far, I will continue to try to control it. So far I am just amazed I have what appears to be a gift in this area. Using other psychic tools and exercises it looks like I struck out so far. It would be a shame to really have a gift that cannot help myself or others in a more significant way. Will try to meditate on that more. Thanks for the encouragement ---- I totally understand any skepticism you may have.

The more I read and learn, the less I know about more.

IIRC, I've never had even one "spiritual experience" was not intrically related to my desire to have one.

IOW, when I stopped wanting them, I stopped having them.

Hard to do when you've never had one spiritual experience in your life. That would be me.

Ron Burr

Your journey of self discovery begins here: http://www.thehawkseye.com/

Speaking of spiritual experiences, the former prophet-president of the RLDS Church (back when it was the RLDS Church), Frederick M. Smith once experimented with peyote to see if it would help him magnify his prophetic calling. I'm sure he had some amazing experiences from that, though I'm not entirely sure they were spiritual! Known affectionately by some in the RLDS Church as Freddie M., he was a psychologist by training, holding a Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University.

The peyote incident is mentioned in a biography of the American composer Virgil Thomson. In fact, Freddie M. gave him some peyote buttons to try! Thomson grew up in the same neighbourhood as the Smith family and was friends with Freddie M.'s daughter Alice.

I do believe there is a lot more to our existence than what we are tuned into. what I do know is that all people of all religions and even atheists too claim to have spiritual experiences.

I personally believe in some sort of collective consciousness that you can tune into subconsciously. The secret to connecting is to not have any preconceived notions.

No church owns spirituality. The second it stops being individual it dies.

I largely agree with this, especially the idea that there is a such thing as an authentic spiritual experience ("more to our existence than what we are tuned into) and that no religion owns the means or rights to that spirituality.

Is there any religious path that acknowledges this?

I'm with you. It's silly to think that our limited senses or limited instrumentation has even scratched the surface of "what's out there."

I'm an agnostic atheist and have no problem with a sort of cosmic plenum, or morphic field as Bradley stated.

Higher primates just don't have the tools right now to say we know for sure what's going on.

I'm all about science, but thinking we understand the nature of reality simply because we've developed quantum physics is like saying someone understands Los Angeles simply because they have a phonebook...

" . . . someone understands Los Angeles simply because they have a phonebook..."

This made me laugh hard because I think that one phrase sums up religion.

You could also say, " . . . someone thinks they understand all existence simply because they have a bible." (Or, even worse, because they have the BoA and BoM also.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2014 01:13PM by blueorchid.

Sorry, but nobody believes they understand reality because of modern notions of quantum physics. Quantum physics only applies on the sub-atomic scale - the same rules don't hold true for anything larger than an atom, which pretty much includes us.

What science can observe, though, is anything that has a noticeable effect on us at the scale of our current existence. For instance, if there is an invisible force in the universe that exerts enough influence on my mind to cause me to have sufficient thoughts concerning its existence, which thoughts are contained within the network of my neural synapses, then I should in theory be able to trace that effect back at least to the exact time and location of the interaction between my brain and whatever that supernatural or metaphysical force happens to be. Thus, observing the physical side of that interaction, I would be able to make deductions and hypotheses regarding the non-physical side, which would lead to an investigation that could involve experimentation.

We've identified the parts of the brain involved with the so-called spiritual experiences, but so far nothing that can't be explained by simple neural-chemistry. It's possible that some day we might discover the parts of the brain that interact with the supernatural and metaphysical and then be able to proceed with further investigation, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Humans throughout the ages have always associated the space beyond the horizon of current scientific knowledge as supernatural and metaphysical, and after thousands of years we have yet to be correct about that association in any case so far.

Probably the Morphic Field proposed by Rupert Sheldrake.

This is a great illustration of how spiritual experiences originate from the brain, from an excellent series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycUvC9s4VYA&list=PL5F1EB3B4F919226D

It's part of being human. No explanation needed. We human are quite adept at finding meaning in our lives.

I don't know but if you could you could also explain intuition or gut feeling.

I always thought I was very spiritual but now I am starting to think I just have very good intuition. I can often "see my future." Or can tell what chain of events lays in front of me.

Alot can be explained naturally. Some.maybe not,but I dont have to explain them. I accept that there are things I do not know.

Mormonism doesn't "explain" anything. Innocent until proven guilty? A spiritual experience cannot be explained. A feeling can go a long way. Nature cannot be explained. No one needs an explanation for the way they feel. A spiritual experience can be had in and out of the church. They are much better out, certainly.

I realize people have experiences they call "spiritual," whatever that means. I've even had a few myself. They don't come from outside your brain. They are an enhanced state of consciousness. I like them.