Thanks for this post. I learned 90% of what I know about Church history before joining Mormon-Mystic. And I feel sometimes that I cheated in the learning, because before I found out the unsettling parts of Mormon history, I had already experienced God directly a couple of times.

And these experiences were within the framework of the Church, believe it or not. So, right from the get-go I was irretrievably biased in favor of the Church.

Even so, I still reached the point where I had to be willing to investigate honestly for myself; where I had to be willing to give up anything I found to be ‘untrue’. Well. I was willing to give up everything EXCEPT my personal and direct experiences with God. So I was willing, though reluctant, to give up the Church.

As it turned out, I never felt the need to actually do so. After many years of research and contemplation, I am very happy within the Church. But like I said, sometimes I feel like I ‘cheated’.

I hope to someday understand why some people have my experience, and others have yours. We all have to deal with what we have, and I have no idea why we get what we’ve got. Pre-earth life? Maybe. I’ve learned to be careful about ‘guessing’.

I look forward to your continuing posts.

Peace,
Cliff

It wasn’t until the truth became more important to me than my beliefs and the truth was presented in an unbiased way that I had ears to hear.

I think you hit on a critical point. I think these transcendent experiences are available not only in the Mormon church but in and out of many other traditions. I hypothesize that the context where one first has this transformative experience is critical to how it is interpreted. Having it inside the Mormon context strengthens faith in Mormonism. Likewise experiencing it within a Buddhist context would strengthen your ties to Buddhism.

I would love to find out if there is some truth that we can extract from these experiences which is independent of context.

It was also a major development in my life when I began to listen to people of other religions (even athiesm) as being sincere and honest.

Of course not all of them were — my experiences with enemies of the Church had me assuming that they were all wrong, and therefore not worth listening to. Probably because of how many of there were so hateful, bigoted and illogical in their approaches to me.

When I decided to suspend judgement long enough to really get what they were saying, from within myself, then I began to see.

I agree with you that spiritual experiences happen to people regardless of whether they are in or out of the Church. And I agree with you that we all interpret the experiences based on our context.

Zen has a method that is somewhat Socratic, where they try to drop all assumptions, eliminate all ‘contexts’. That’s scary, too.

Hmmm… Truth that is independent of context. Interesting. I used to think that “I AM” would be that. Now, I’m not sure.

I find it intriguing that Sam Harris, the atheist author of The End of Faith, is also a follower of the Buddha. I never realized how skeptical Buddhism could be. It is fundamentally atheistic, lacking a governing God. I intend to investigate Zen further, especially now that you’ve made the connection for me between Zen and losing context.

I read this entire thing in one sitting and want you to know I don’t know how hard this is for you, because I would rather not say anything at all to my family. I do know that this is very difficult for some to understand to them I say be open and let him be. I love my sister more then anything and I truly know you would never hurt her and this was not a thought out plan from the beginning. I just want you to know I still wish you both the best and am so grateful to have my beautiful girls and without you I don’t have them, so thank you.

Carolyn

We share a lot. I, too, was very upset when I found how much had been changed and lost. I am still angry and I know that I need to let it go. I know the early days of the Church had their challenges, but sometimes I feel that I would rather be back then. I love and revel in the doctrines brought forth by Joseph, Brigham and Heber. Today, we get repudiations.

I have come to believe that we all come here with our own gifts and limitations. The D&C talks of those who have the gift of believing others. Possibly they believe because they have not yet gained a conviction of their own. Some might say this is a very temporary condition. I am no longer quite so sure.

As others have said, the search for truth is a good thing and I am persuaded that it is not always so easy to be dispassionate enough to let the search take us where it will. Sometimes we get attached to thinks/ideas along the way and letting go is hard.

My best wishes and prayers to you and yours. While I have not gone through your experiences exactly, I have experienced similar ones and they try one.

Steve Graham

Regarding attachment to ideas, I once heard that wisdom is strong opinions which are held weakly. In other words, believe passionately but refuse to be seduced by dogmatism. Always be prepared to change your mind if that’s what the evidence dictates. This may seem wishy-washy to some, but the center of this dictum is a fierce loyalty to truth above all else.