Have you ever had a profound mystical experience?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robert_Sock
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Oh everyone,

I am so happy and blessed by this thread. I felt so inspired when I had read it. I think that many people leave the church because testimonies are not sufficiently shared from those who have experienced God as real, active, and loving. Testimonies have always accompanied all vibrant Christian communities in history and are essential when it comes to evangelization. People do not want rules and authorities based on nothing, they want Christ’s real and active presence. Through the intimacy with him then grows the need to be like him. Not the other way around. When young people think that Jesus was neither seen nor heard from for the last 2000 years they start to wonder: are the Gospels real, am I even in the right church, in the right faith, etc.? I know this from my own life too.

I have also had experiences where I experienced God’s clear help, his voice inside, his sudden healing activity or huge enlightenment on some topic. I have felt, physically, the power of the Holy Spirit, and I have met Christians who have experienced healings from cancer, depression, mental illness, all kinds of physical illnesses, and even people being raised from the dead. Just as Christ said. Oh and I know quite a few who saw Him, also children.

I never thought a person was crazy who told me something like that. On the contrary it inspired me to pray and trust in God’s love and personal interest.

Daisy M
 
I had an experience when I felt a mystical presence in my room. I believed at that time that it was my guardian angel. I felt profoundly loved and cared for at a time when I felt abandoned by all who supposedly loved me on earth.

I have also perceived the presence of angels at Mass. This hasn’t happened often and I don’t search out these experiences but they are nice.
 
Once after deep intense prayer and contemplation in a moment of deep challenge in my life, I felt a feeling of complete joy and forgiveness and acceptance from God. Then I saw a light that spread outwards, and soon the walls, the carpet, the windows, the doors and I looked out and saw a tree and it was nothing but light and love woven into an appearance of a tree. Everything was that - pure love and light, appearing to us as physical reality.

And I knew this was reality, and ordinary awareness was being veiled from the truth.

For about half an hour, I saw this intense but gentle light in everything and every person, and gradually it faded. But I never forgot that is what is what life really is - a pure gift of love, but one that is usually so difficult to perceive as such while we are here.
 
Matthew_Light said:
Once after deep intense prayer and contemplation in a moment of deep challenge in my life, I felt a feeling of complete joy and forgiveness and acceptance from God. Then I saw a light that spread outwards, and soon the walls, the carpet, the windows, the doors and I looked out and saw a tree and it was nothing but light and love woven into an appearance of a tree. Everything was that - pure love and light, appearing to us as physical reality.

And I knew this was reality, and ordinary awareness was being veiled from the truth.

For about half an hour, I saw this intense but gentle light in everything and every person, and gradually it faded. But I never forgot that is what is what life really is - a pure gift of love, but one that is usually so difficult to perceive as such while we are here.
Click to expand...
…but one that is usually so difficult to perceive as such while we are here…
I think the giant tree is Immaculata’s holy mantle to affirm and protect Christians. She, mother of God Almighty sends us out with another battle cry. Poor sinners listen when she talks and especially when she instructs. Alleluia.
 
Long ago, in my early or middle twenties, for a little while I felt like hints of heaven were bleeding through into this world from the next. I don’t know how to describe it otherwise except to say that it had to do with the way I was perceiving light, especially light filtered through leaves. It lasted for about a week, give or take. I think a religious science fiction novel I was reading at the time may have been partly responsible, what with its odd but intense use of somewhat nonstandard color adjectives; i.e. blue skies became cerulean skies.

If the phenomenon had stayed with me, my life would have been very different.
 
I witnessed the sun pulsating or “dancing” for at least 2 minutes at a small village somewhere in Europe. Don’t think I’m allowed to give any further details.
 
Can’t say I have (at least the Catholic brand of it). I do clear my head occasionally though. It’s like setting aside the stuff on your desk before you start drawing out a nice, pretty picture. (Only this one’s in 3D. :p)
 
RosslynV said:
I witnessed the sun pulsating or “dancing” for at least 2 minutes at a small village somewhere in Europe. Don’t think I’m allowed to give any further details.
Click to expand...
I have had people tell me it will do the same thing no matter where you are if you look at the sun, which is very dangerous to the eyes. I wouldn’t do it anywhere! God Bless, Memaw
 
During the very difficult delivery of my first child, I wound up in the hospital after attempting a home birth…on one of the cabinets in the hospital room. I saw the face of Jesus like I had seen on medallions before. I knew that it was Jesus but only realised later that it was the face on Shroud of Turin. It was very comforting.

It is interesting to me to hear other people’s experiences in order to understand how much God is doing to reach out to us in very concrete and human ways. That is incredible.

This happened almost 13 years ago and I have only shared it with one person, one time.

Although agree that we should heed the warning about spiritual pride, if many people are having these experiences shouldn’t others know about them? if only just to send the message that God is alive and well and working His wonders in our world today!
 
Dulcinea2721 said:
:o
Although agree that we should heed the warning about spiritual pride, if many people are having these experiences shouldn’t others know about them? if only just to send the message that God is alive and well and working His wonders in our world today!
Click to expand...
Yes!
 
Once I heard a voice in my head that said very clearly “Everything will be all right”, and I felt that everything would be all right. Another time I experienced something similar to what another poster related, in that I began to see things “differently”, as if they were infused with love, or that a veil had been drawn aside, I guess. I was taking a walk in the park and the colors of the plants and greenery became so much “more” colored, the sky became so much “more” blue, the air became softer, I became aware of, I guess it would be called “love”, but in a different sense than I had ever experienced. I think this must be a precursor to heaven.

I don’t mind relating these experiences as a witness to God, but I don’t do it indiscriminately , only to people whom I feel would benefit from relating them and not someone who would make fun of them or think I was crazy. If people never shared them, we would not have the testimonies of the Saints–we would not have the experiences of Theresa of Avila or other mystics to contemplate.

I am not, however, a mystic, and don’t understand most of them. I relate better to St. Therese of Lisieux.
 
CB_Catholic said:
Another time I experienced something similar to what another poster related, in that I began to see things “differently”, as if they were infused with love, or that a veil had been drawn aside, I guess. I was taking a walk in the park and the colors of the plants and greenery became so much “more” colored, the sky became so much “more” blue, the air became softer, I became aware of, I guess it would be called “love”, but in a different sense than I had ever experienced. I think this must be a precursor to heaven.

I am not, however, a mystic, and don’t understand most of them. I relate better to St. Therese of Lisieux.
Click to expand...
Ah yes, but St. Therese of Lisieux is one of the Church’s greatest mystics! But she could be described as the “lights off” type vs. a St. Teresa of Avila who is very much a “lights on” type. The difference between the two is that one clearly understands the work God is doing in their soul while for the other the infused work of God in the soul is more dark and muddled to the recipient. Additionally, the graces received are in the realm of “ordinary” contemplation rather than the “extraordinary” ways of a St. Teresa of Avila (visions, revelations, ecstatic prayer states etc)

What you described in your post is very much a mystical experience … from the “ordinary way” that was so typical of St. Therese. God will often grant the type of sublime “peaks behind the veil” you and other posters describe … to those who love Him deeply and completely. You are blessed!

Dave 🙂
 
Does anyone know why do I get a message of “You may not vote on this poll”?
I got this message for many Poll thread. If I could vote, I will vote for “Yes”.🙂
 
Like many people when I was a teenager I used to take our saviors name cussing…one day when I was 19 I heard a voice in my head say"why do you take the name of the lord in vain"…as a fun loving teenager who hadn’t been to church in years that was totally unexpected and it shocked me on the spot…for about a week after that I felt as if I was walking on air and turned inside out…incredible feeling…I have never forgotten that decades later…of course at the time I didn’t know what had happened…i now know it was the Holy Spirit…there was another time in later life when I in desperation I had a prayer answered when a series of events happened that was more than co-incidence,but that’s a long story:)
 
I’ve been wondering how many people have these sorts of experiences as well… I’m not even sure how to explain my situation, really, but I guarantee it’s not in a boastful manner. If anything, most of my life I’ve regarded it as more of a burden (or curse even, when I was younger), but now that I’m older and a part of the Catholic Church things have become much more clear. Also, this sort of thing, on a much much smaller scale, seems to run in my family.

I have had these experiences as long as I can remember… So many of them that I couldn’t even begin to recount them all, but my first involved me collapsing to the floor after a large church event, and having a grand vision of heaven. The premise was that ‘no matter what happens to you in life, you will always have a place here with me.’ Retrospectively, I guess that should’ve warned me about how extremely difficult my life was going to be!

However, not all of them are good. I had many experiences seeing demons throughout my youth as well. It’s like I have an antenna and pick up everything. So I’ve seen angels, demons, deceased family members (okay, I can HEAR my deceased family members at times, such as after a recent death or when someone’s going through a really tough time), I’ve had visions of heaven, seen unbelievable things that kept me going through especially difficult times, but also horrible, horrible things that surfaced to purposely try to terrify me during times of conflict. I’ve seen religious leaders in the past about this, some would say I had a “special gift”, some would decide to perform an impromptu ‘exorcism’ of sorts (no, it didn’t work because I’m genuinely not possessed, lol), all manner of opinions.

However, since I’ve become pregnant (a small miracle in itself considering my health- I have a genetic disorder) things have been through the roof. I’ve been praying about this for many years and I do know how to keep dark spirits/demons away, but have only recently began to pray that if this is something of God, then I am open to it, but for him to not let anything corrupt come in and try to fool me into things.

I don’t seek these experiences out, I don’t call upon anything besides our Father, besides my prayers for intercession by the Saints or praying the rosary. I’ve been given much advice on how to identify spirits (those which ever cause any amount of anxiety or fear, even indirectly, are never of God) and I have only found peace and direction back to God and the church from my recently deceased family members (sounds scary, I know).

Recently (during these experiences) I’ve been told to see a priest about my concerns over spirits coming to me. I’m not ever troubled by any vision or visitation from angels or the Holy Spirit, because they come with a calm and peace that surpasses my ability to describe in human terms… There is simply no mistaking that, ever. But these other things… I’m worried that whatever this spiritual antenna is that I seem to have also attracts demons and the spirits of people I’ve never met, and which I do not feel that I have any need to communicate with. I need to talk to a local priest, but I’m honestly embarrassed/afraid of what they might think…

I don’t have a desire to be a medium, I don’t have a desire to be overly preoccupied with the spiritual world either because I already know for a fact that for people like me, when we start to pay attention, spirits notice. I left the church for many years and simply pretended/shut out/shut off this ability, because it scared me too much.

Sorry, this is my first post and I know it’s very long… But I’m just unsure now. It seems that the closer I become to God and the church, the more intense these things become. I don’t want to reject an opportunity/potential gift from God, but I’m not even sure if the Catholic Church believes in these things, or rather, feels that it’s okay for someone to have these recurrent experiences without being some sort of spirit-seeker, or demonically afflicted person.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of situation??? What sort of priest to talk to about this sort of thing?

I grew up Methodist, and then my mother took me to an evangelical Protestant church for years where they just scared the mess out of me, lol.

I will say that I truly feel our pregnancy was a miracle, and shortly after (but before I knew) I believe I had a visitation from the blessed mother while praying the rosary and asking for guidance. Come to think of it, it was only AFTER that visitation that I suddenly began hearing from my family members with much greater intensity.

Lord knows, I’m still constantly praying about this…
 
Also, I didn’t mention it (it’s actually something I feel very timid discussing for some reason) but I have also had visions/visitation by Jesus as well. The first time was during my first grand vision at 8 years old, and the second was when I believe God actually came to my room and gave me the choice of whether or not I was ready to ‘go’ (along with a visitation from what I believe was the angel of death, and another, much BIGGER angel of protection) while I was very very sick and also very very sad. (In my pain, I had been praying for him to just let me go home… It was bad)

So, I know these aren’t all bad experiences. But it’s just that I’m unsure as to whee to draw the line, I suppose.

Gosh, this is embarrassing. Thanks for any advice guys, please keep an open mind and try not to scold me too harshly 🙂
 
Lastly (sorry I’ve got a killer migraine and am unsure how to go back/add to/edit my previous posts), I just wanted to post the disclaimer that while I do have extensive medical problems, I have been checked and do not have any mental illness nor personality disorders… I know many people would assume schizophrenia or something similar, but remember that the further away from the church that I go, the less frequent/intense these things are, so I truly know there’s a spiritual correlation.

Thanks if you actually read all of that, haha.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top