Hi Luigi,
Thank you for your interest and for saying that I sound believable. I think I sound believable too. I read somewhere (maybe in Evelyn Underhill’s *Mysticism * ) that no one has ever been able to describe these experiences, but that we can tell, by the way they TRY to describe them, that they are all talking about the same thing.
I don’t feel as if I can begin exactly at the beginning here, not at the moment, but wanted to respond to you as soon as possible. Before I say anything, I want to say that St. John of the Cross has said, vis-a-vis ‘mystical’ experiences, that “many souls who have known nothing of such things have made incomparably greater progress than others who have received many of them” (Ascent of Mt. Carmel). And St. Teresa of Avila, in her autobiography, describes how she, after 20 years of searching for a spiritual director who understands her, finally meets a Jesuit who knows what she is talking about and who does not consider her mad, dishonest, a trouble-maker, an attention-seeker or possessed by the devil. He listens to what she has to say about all her exalted experiences, and he tells her what she needs to do. He is very surprised when she cannot carry out his instructions. He says the states the Lord has raised her to do not match up with the person she is. He tells her she probably doesn’t even know the meaning of the word, “mortification.” I read that for years before I realized I didn’t know the meaning of the word, “mortification.” I thought it meant something like, "utterly ashamed.’ I finally looked it up and it means, “to be dead to the world” – to care nothing for the world or any of what it has to offer, to care nothing for its opinion of me.
The most important thing I read in all the books for year after year was that we must PRAY. I read for decade after decade and did not get that we must ask for help in all things.
I shall try to answer your questions briefly, and yes, if you want to connect with me again. please send the Private Message if you prefer that. I’m not sure I know how to do that at the moment.
- How do you know these gifts are from God?
That is a big question. I don’t know if I can answer that fully right now. I hope I can be at least accurate. There are people who are scholars who can think about these things in an organized way. I would like to know some of those people. I think we know because the proof is in the pudding. I would say, and I hope I am accurate, that it is the transformation in the person that is the proof.
I’ve known some dark people in my time, whose gifts were not from God. They can buzz people up, and even do “healings”, but it is clear from the effect they have on those around them, that there is something very wrong going on here. There is only one teacher, and nothing goes wrong around him. Anybody who wants to be ‘guru’ I would have nothing to do with. That’s not much of an answer, but I am being too long here.
- What do you do to get there?
Again, a big question. Looking back, I see I simply should have asked him for help much, much sooner and far more often. I should have asked him for help and for wisdom, in everything from finding the keys to finding him. (Although, when it came down to it, it was more that he found me.)
- You are still Catholic, right?
I think what I am is Catholic at the core. I will try to explain it by relating one of the experiences I had in 2004. (While sitting on my couch in my sitting room) I was in the crypt of a church (I was in London at the time these things happened.). I had a crowbar and I lifted one of the old worn stones up from the floor of the crypt with that. What I saw beneath the stone was what resembled a golden egg in a nest. The gold was not made of gold metal. It was made of gold light. This egg was Christ. There was a sort of gauzy membrane or excresence over and around the egg. It got the impression that the gauze was needed, perhaps because I wouldn’t have been able to look at the egg if there hadn’t been something between it and me to tone it down. Or perhaps for some other reason. St. John of the Cross says you should never interpret these things. After seeing the egg, I saw the outside of the church in my neighbourhood. It seemed to be covered in barnacles. The barnacles were all the things ‘not right’ about the church. On the one hand, it was as it these pictures said both that the barnacles are hiding Christ, the barnacles have got him captive. On the other hand, there was the view that he needs to be hidden from eyes that shouldn’t see him, and that even the worst aspects of the church, terrible as they have been, provide some of the camoflage.
4./ What are you surprised about?
I would say that the most surprising part of this for me is that, for 29 years, I was trying to reach Nirvana.
Please write again, if you care to.
Sorpresa
PS. Yes! about getting out of his way! That is all that prayer is. Get out of his way. I have made everything so difficult for myself by not understanding about prayer and am still trying so hard to learn and to remember that that is all I need do.
)
Talking to academics can be quite fruitful. I hear voices - religious and secular, psychotic, intrusive thoughts and something more like locutions - and God thought it would be amusing to put me in the care of a university tutor whose research interest is medieval female mysticism 
I learned a lot from her in a very safe spiritual and loving environment