How intense was/is your spirituality?

[cloudyday2]

Later on I got psychosis from smoking weed which makes me think of what you said:

What was that like? Did you get diagnosed and treated?

I had some experiences for a year or so, and a few years later a psychotherapist told me it was psychosis of some kind (after I had already recovered without a diagnosis or treatment of any kind LOL). I keep revisiting the question of whether it was all psychosis or partially spiritual. That's why I'm curious what your experience was like (if you feel like describing).

 

[awitch]

I've had experiences that were quite intense, but generally speaking my spirituality is not very intense.

 

[cloudyday2]

When I was about 10 years old, I was given a Bible (the Good News translation with beautiful ink drawings that I loved to admire). I read it cover-to-cover several times and realized there were serious problems if taken literally. "Joshua's long day" was the first story that stood-out as bothersome.

Nevertheless, I tried to read a little bit from the Bible every day and say my prayers before bed. I was definitely the most devout person in my household. My parents were devout by being active in the Episcopal Church, but neither of them had read the Bible much. My family stopped attending church when I was about 13, because my parents didn't like the new priest.

I basically lost faith by the time I graduated from college, but I still had a door open for God if he would give me a little evidence to believe.

When I was 42, something happened that could be explained as a psychotic episode, but I didn't know it was psychosis and I wasn't diagnosed or treated. Instead I became extremely religious, because I thought I finally had evidence to believe in Christianity. But I started having doubts after about 6 months and began finding my way back to atheism over the next several years.

I miss being psychotic. It was terrifying at first, but then it felt like I was special because I could sometimes catch glimpses behind the veil into the supernatural and know without a doubt that this physical world is not all there is. Now I suppose I am back to normal and life seems pretty dismal most of the time. It would be nice to know that I actually experienced spiritual things at least some of the time as opposed to only imagining it all.

 

[Jonaitis]

I am curious about how theists and former theists intensity of spirituality is/was compared to the average person. While it is impossible to peer into the lived experiences of others I do think we are capable of making some educated guesses.

For me, I was very spiritual since I was 3 or 4. Coincidently a time period where the human brain starts to develop a sense of theory of mind (empathy). The spirituality was a constant onslaught. Sometimes the feelings were so intense they hurt. Suffering was the main framework. Out of the monks and nuns I investigate, the more intense ones are those who seem to also incorporate a sense of suffering into their spiritual framework.

This was when I was not even making any real effort into meditation. It was not until my last few years as a theist that I started to practice mediation and escalating the spiritual feelings to be as strong as possible. Ironically enough, it was also during this time that I slowly started to look at my spirituality through a secular lens. I even started slipping the idea into my thoughts and speech that the spirituality I was feeling were just emotions. A convergence of spirituality and secularity was somewhat molding together.

Unfortunately I soon lost my faith, and was suddenly and violently ripped away from my spiritual feelings. I dealt with what I personally described as severe chemical withdrawals for a few years. Even now ten years later my brain is not the same and life almost feels permanently gray and lifeless.

I am interested in hearing about other people's experiences. This being CF, I suspect a more spiritually intense crowd than the average population. I am also curious about hearing stories from other former theists about experiencing some of the negative effects from losing their faith that I did.

Well, we don't understand 'spirituality' as something you simply 'feel,' but as something you grow into. It is includes one's lifestyle, not a mere passion. In the biblical sense, to be spiritual is to be mature in the faith. The more spiritual a man is, the godlier his life becomes, regardless of any emotional drive.

 

[Dansiph]

What was that like? Did you get diagnosed and treated?

I had some experiences for a year or so, and a few years later a psychotherapist told me it was psychosis of some kind (after I had already recovered without a diagnosis or treatment of any kind LOL). I keep revisiting the question of whether it was all psychosis or partially spiritual. That's why I'm curious what your experience was like (if you feel like describing).

That's interesting. Were you sleeping properly at the time? That can cause psychosis symptoms. What type of symptoms did you have?

My psychosis was pretty bad. It began with thinking people on television could see me and interact with me. At first this was positive. Then I began thinking everyone I knew secretly hated me and that slowly developed into thinking my entire city was conspiring against me in some evil plan. The people on television were also involved in the plan.

It lasted a few weeks. I eventually went to a Doctor and only really told him about thinking people on the television were watching me. He sent me to an early intervention team. I was given diazepam the first day because of how visually anxious I was and started other medications. It took about three weeks until I finally realised none of it was real. I can't really remember much about the decision to go to a Doctor except my uncle and my mum taking me there and me asking them not to come into the room with me.

I'm being vague on a lot of details as I don't want to describe it all. I want to add, the television thing might seem a bit funny in description but I can tell you it wasn't. For example I would watch it in the dark with my face covered for hours giving them nothing to go on. This eventually lead to thinking they and others could read my thoughts. My thoughts were erratic and so they were now using these thoughts against me in the "plan".

 

[cloudyday2]

That's interesting. Were you sleeping properly at the time? That can cause psychosis symptoms. What type of symptoms did you have?

My psychosis was pretty bad. It began with thinking people on television could see me and interact with me. At first this was positive. Then I began thinking everyone I knew secretly hated me and that slowly developed into thinking my entire city was conspiring against me in some evil plan. The people on television were also involved in the plan.

It lasted a few weeks. I eventually went to a Doctor and only really told him about thinking people on the television were watching me. He sent me to an early intervention team. I was given diazepam the first day because of how visually anxious I was and started other medications. It took about three weeks until I finally realised none of it was real. I can't really remember much about the decision to go to a Doctor except my uncle and my mum taking me there and me asking them not to come into the room with me.

I'm being vague on a lot of details as I don't want to describe it all. I want to add, the television thing might seem a bit funny in description but I can tell you it wasn't. For example I would watch it in the dark with my face covered for hours giving them nothing to go on. This eventually lead to thinking they and others could read my thoughts. My thoughts were erratic and so they were now using these thoughts against me in the "plan".

That is similar in many ways to what psychosis was like for me except that I didn't get any treatment so it ended very gradually over a year or two. I flew a couple of hours to meet an old friend for the weekend, and due to social anxiety and stuff it was stressful. Also, flying was stressful. I began having background thoughts that something was wrong after the outgoing flight landed. When the returning flight landed after the weekend I suddenly snapped and it seemed that the background thoughts formed a pattern indicating that I had accidentally offended some undefined secret group with magical powers and they were going to kill me. I couldn't sleep more than an hour or two each night for the first week, because I felt that "they" were putting thoughts in my brain while I slept and could become invisible and put drugs in my food and speakers in my walls and so forth. That sounds very similar to your symptoms in my opinion. I was not an active Christian, but my mother took me to her Orthodox priest who apparently performed an exorcism in Serbian and then joked about it with others later. What finally helped me was sleeping pills. It was very difficult to take the pills, because I was so paranoid about what might happen while I was asleep, but I started doing that and getting some rest so that I could function better. Unfortunately being taken to the Orthodox priest started me down the path of religiosity and fantasies about running away from my normal life to become a monk. I gave away almost all my savings, because I wanted to be penniless and join a monastery. Every evening I would read the Bible and pray and read books about monks and fasted. I had some remarkable hallucinations/visions with religious themes over the next six months that kept me motivated in the religiosity. Eventually I began to feel uncomfortable and skeptical about Orthodoxy. The priest was probably a closet atheist, and he kept asking me for loans. He only took $2400 which was only about 1% of the money I gave away to charities, but still it made me doubt his sincerity as a priest. The rituals and the beliefs about intercommunion of the Orthdodox church bothered me too. (I was raised in the Episcopal Church which believes that all denominations have valid sacraments/mysteries, but the Orthodox church prohibits members from receiving communion in non-Orthodox churches. That bothered me, because one of visions seemed to tell me it was a wrong belief.) ... Anyway two years after the fateful airplane flight that began it all I stopped attending church. Originally I was planning to switch to another denomination, but I began reading books about paranormal, UFOs, and eventually skeptical books about Christianity. Over several years I lost faith, but I still ruminate a lot and have some odd thoughts at times. It's been 11 years. (Sorry, probably more detail than anybody wants to read LOL)

 

[Zoness]

I was not that spiritual growing up, I mostly went to church because I had to and would much rather have watched cartoons and played video games. I had a year or so of intense spirituality in high school as a Christian then it leveled off into my "basically irreligious" default. I had another big spike when I began to enter the occult world in college then it too leveled out, I've had some brief spikes in my young adult working years but I don't really let it control me. I have always been more comfortable with religion when it is kept at arms length. It works for me in that space while not being too domineering.

I do actually now as an adult keep more orthopraxic order in my religion than in the past because I like the regularity.

 

[dlamberth]

Over the years I've journeyed from being sort of religious to being extremely spiritual. I've changed so much that any more I find being religious as a hindrance to my spiritual trajectory.

The changes began when I discovered the Mystical Traditions of the various religions around the word. As I dug deeper began spiritual practices in those trajectories I naturally became more spiritual. And when applying that kind of perspective to the Indigenous peoples, doing sweet lodges and learning their perspective, I grew even more spiritual. What really changed me is when I became aware of the Life Force of God running through and within all that exist. That's when I started looking at things through Consciousness rather than Form. But that's a whole other chapter of my life. I'm fortunate in that I'm initiated into a very spiritual family of like minded folks who also see the spiritual everywhere they look.

Due to my spiritual perspective, I often find myself not understood, even in this forum.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

What do you mean "intense spirituality"?

You mean like feelings?

My spirituality is one with my life, I can't separate it.

How about someone define "spirituality"?

 

[MehGuy]

How about someone define "spirituality"?

I'll keep what is spiritual open. From my own spirituality it was simply a type of hyper emotional empathy. Despite considering myself very spiritual there were aspects that my brain utterly failed at. Such as speaking in tongues, feeling God's love, hearing audible voices or other trippy experiences. I suspect much of this failure had to do with me refraining from worship and general submissive attitudes. There were a few times I experimented with being worshipful and submissive towards God. I'll have to say that spiritual experience was quite different and more aligned with my peers. Somewhat out of body experience and feeling "drunk".

Honestly despite feeling very spiritual I pretty much threw away a lot of my potential capacity. Which is a somewhat scary thought, lol.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Can an atheist be spiritual?

 

[Zoness]

Can an atheist be spiritual?

I think so, because atheism is a position on the existence of god and doesn't automatically entail any other positions. I've known a number of spiritual naturalists, animists and pagans that would casually describe themselves as atheistic while performing what many would call spiritual practices.

 

[MehGuy]

Can an atheist be spiritual?

As far as feelings that remind me of my Christian days, I'd say yes.

Carl Sagan's poetic words about the Cosmos surprisingly easily brings me into a spiritual zone. Being in the woods still produces spiritual effects. Something primal about nature that makes it hard to desensitize you from spiritual emotions even if you have adopted a very materialistic world view.