The Spirituality of Premonitions

[Deadworm]

"THE SCIENCE OF PREMONITIONS:" A Book by Dr. Larry Dossey:

By "science," Dossey has in mind replicable lab experiments that confirm compelling anecdotal cases and suggest that we all potentially have this ability, an ability which can be transformed into a gift of the Holy Spirit, when it is used to edify Christians for God's glory. In the 2nd post of my thread on Speaking in Tongues and Spirit Baptism, I describe the electrifying experience that seems to have activated by potential to have regular premonitions. See the intriguing Dossey interview below:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...3D3569D21757F924BBFD3D3569D21757F92&FORM=VIRE

For me, the real "scientific" question here is this: When do mere "coincidences" become so improbable that it becomes reasonable to invoke paranormal causal agency apart from the space/ time continuum. For this thread I will initially focus on my own frequent experiences of premonitions. I invite readers to discuss these testimonies and post their own experiences with this phenomena. In my view, the premonitions I'll share establish the existence of a spiritual dimension. Here is my first premonitory experience:
(1) At age 19, I was a Winnipeg college student. About 5 years my senior, my friend Dallas was the leader of our church youth group of about 150. I had just been Best Man at his wedding and was now invited to the newlyweds post-Christmas dinner. After eating, we played table tennis in their basement. Dallas mentioned that he was going deer hunting in northern Manitoba the next day and I instantly felt a sense of dread. It seemed as if I saw his skeleton and was certain that he would be killed in an accident if he went on this trip. Horrified, I felt compelled to share my premonition with him. He was offended and blamed my so-called premonition on my anti-hunting views. I had no such views, though I've never gone hunting myself. What could I do? I had no evidence beyond my certainty. I guess I hoped God would confirm my premonition to Dallas.

A few days later, we had a New Year's Eve service at our church. What happened when I arrived at the church was straight out of a horror movie. 3 young girls in our youth group approached me, giggling, and said. You do know that Dallas was killed yesterday in a hunting accident. He was riding a snowmobile with his gun placed near him and hit a bump. The resulting jolt caused his rifle to discharge into his shoulder. He bled to death before his hunting buddies got him to a doctor. The girls giggled and one said to the other, "Wow, I guess we sure ruined his day!" It was as if Hell was taunting me for my friendship with Dallas! What was so funny about their youth leader's death? I charitably assumed that their was just a nervous laughter. I later obsessed over what this tragedy meant. Why was I given this premonition if it would be useless to prevent his death? And was his death predestined fate?

 

[Deadworm]

2 PREMONITIONS AT PRINCETON [but not my last one there, which will be treated separately in my next planned post, because it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.]

(2) My next premonition after Dallas's accidental shooting happened just before Christmas at Princeton Seminary. I regularly dined with a great and very witty guy named Ted in our refectory. Ted already had 2 masters degrees and had just been accepted into the NT doctoral program at Cambridge U in England. I went to his dorm room to borrow his Cambridge catalogue, so I could apply to Cambridge as one of my potential grad schools. When Ted gave me the catalogue, I again seemed to see his skeleton in a premonition that his death was imminent. This time, though, I said nothing because I had no idea where the danger lay and, in any case, I had been unsuccessful in deterring Dallas from his hunting trip. When I returned to seminary after Christmas vacation, I learned that Ted and his friend Ken were driving home for Christmas together, but their car spun out on ice and crashed into a pole. Ken broke his arm, but Ted was killed. When I reflected on why I was given this premonition, the only interpretation that made sense was that I was meant to pray that Ted would be spared. Unfortunately, I could not bring myself to accept that the premonition was accurate and instead just tried to put it out of my mind. But I would soon learn that my premonitions were always accurate.

(3) My next premonition at Princeton Seminary came in the form of a nightmare in which my life was threatened and I pleaded with God for mercy. The next day, I drove to the Newark College of Engineering, where I was doing field work as a chaplain assistant. As I was driving home in the dark on a freeway, my motor suddenly died and my car slowed to a stop. I was fortunate to walk off the freeway through the heavy traffic and my car was totaled by another car shortly thereafter. I called 2 friends, Mike and Peter, from my dorm and they came and picked me up. Both of them said they too had experienced a nightmare the night before. At least in this case, the premonition seems intended to alert me to my personal danger and to induce me to pray for God's protection.

 

[Deadworm]

(4) My next premonition is not the most evidential, but I experienced it as part of the 2nd most spiritually profound day of my life. [ I share my most spiritually significant day in my 2nd post in my thread, "Speaking in Tongues and Spirit Baptism" which currently lies adjacent to this thread].

I was in the final 2 months of my senior year at Princeton Seminary. I had applied to various doctoral programs in New Testament and Judaism, but since I was 16, I had always dreamed of getting my doctorate at Harvard. As a 16 year old soccer player in Canada, I received a serious eye injury that threatened me with blindness and my Winnipeg doctor urged me to have the surgery in Boston. So my Dad accompanied me on the long train rides to Montreal and then to Boston, and a kind Christian Armenian couple took me in as a total stranger, while I convalesced from the surgery. Mr. Chorlian drove me around Boston and eventually around Harvard, bragging about how great a university it was. In my time of crisis, I needed a dream and the thought of getting a Harvard doctorate became that dream. But now in my last 2 months at Princeton, my friends were warning me that I had no chance of admission because I lacked a sufficient academic background for the program.

At Princeton, I had taken a preaching class with George, but he wasn't really a friend. Still, somehow he heard about my dream from a friend and decided to pay me a visit in my dorm room. When I opened the door, George just radiated warmth and love. He said, "Don, I've been praying for you, and the Lord has given me assurance that you will be accepted at Harvard soon." At once, my anxiety vanished and George's premonition about me became mine as well.

The next evening started horrendously. Anne, an attractive fellow student, came to my dorm room in a rage, accusing me of calling her on the phone and telling her she was too emotionally unstable to be a seminarian. I liked Anne because she had been a great comfort to me when my close friend had been killed in a car wreck. How could she think I'd do such a thing? Well, I was a friend of her boyfriend John who had just broken up with her, and I guess she wrongly thought he had confided in me about the break-up; and the guy who called her must have sounded like me.

In the midst of Anne's harangue, there was another knock at my door. I was told there was a phone call for me on the pay phone in the middle of the dorm. I excused myself and raced to the phone. It was John Strugnell, the Harvard professor who controlled the Dead sea Scrolls at the time, calling to inform me of my acceptance with a scholarship. Imagine my emotional roller coaster ride from false accusation to the news that fulfilled a long-time dream! When I returned to my room, Anne demanded to know who that was, and her jaw dropped when I told her. Evidently, she feared that John was calling me to warn me about her imminent tirade!

Suddenly, her mood changed and, alarmed, she asked me, "Are you OK?" I mumbled, "Fine, under the circumstances. Why?" She replied, "Because your right hand is gushing blood from the palm and is streaming onto your pants!" At that time, I had always dismissed stigmata as a Catholic superstition and I have never experienced this before or since. But my "stigmata" evidently convinced Anne of my innocence and she hastily left my room. I just sat there with a beautiful blend of elation and sorrow, as I thanked God for George's kind intercessory prayer in my behalf.

This premonition is far from my most evidential one, but it is my most sacred and treasured one. I'll share my most evidential premonition in a future post after a few more examples.

 

[HjartaoHamast]

Wow that's really amazing! But it sounds like a blessing and a curse. You must have a gift God has given you that the enemy desperately wants to take away

 

[Deadworm]

(5) When I was a United Church of Christ interim minister in Buffalo, NY, Eleanor regularly attended our prayer group (4-6 people). As in my present location in Washington state, we were amazed by our answers (e. g. Doctors decreed that a baby would not leave the hospital alive, and the baby was healed!). But that's not why I'm talking about Eleanor. I'll never forget the note attached to my windshield wipers after I finished a long walk. It said that Eleanor had just been killed in a fiery car crash. In her totaled car were several get well cards that she had planned to send to sick people or people in surgery.

After the funeral, I met her sister Joan in a restaurant. Joan's grief was sweetened by a dream premonition Eleanor had related to her on the day of the fatal crash. Eleanor was in her house, when her late husband Nick came downstairs and said, "Come on up, honey. I want to dance with you again." Eleanor saw some deceased relatives upstairs and sensed that "upstairs" was a symbol for the afterlife and that "dance" was a symbol of death. She loved to dance with Nick, but this time declined, saying, "O no, I'm not ready for that yet." By late afternoon she was dead.

Joan shared this verification. At roughly the time Eleanor died, the cuckoo clock in the living room stopped. The same clock had stopped many years previously when her husband Nick suffered a fatal heart attack, shoveling snow and when her son, Nick, Jr,, recently committed suicide, distraught over his failed marriage. These odd coincidences, and especially the dream premonition, convinced her sister Joan that a divine providence was mysteriously at work in the timing of Eleanor's death.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was the greatest Swedish scientist ever, and beginning in his 50s, became perhaps the psychic with the most impressive verifications of his visits to Heaven and Hell and his conversations with deceased spirits. He was a man of impeccable Christian character, but I consider aspects of his theology heretical and don't encourage the average Christian to read his many books. But the phenomenon of a cuckoo clock stopping at the moment of death for Eleanor, her son, and her husband finds spectacular precedent in Swedenborg's demonstration of his psychic gifts.

Prof. Scherrer counted himself among the skeptics of Swedenborg's claims to regular visit the spirit world and converse with spirits. But he was a dumbfounded eyewitness to this incident that occurred while Swedenborg was socializing with a group of skeptics in Stockholm:

"They put him to the proof as to the credibility of his extraordinary spiritual communications. The test was this: He should state, which of the company would die first. Swedenborg did not refuse to answer this question, but after some time, in which he seemed to be in profound and silent meditation, he quite openly replied: "Olaf Olafsohn will die tomorrow morning at 4:45 AM..." The company was placed in anxious expectation, and a gentleman who was a friend of Olaf Olafsohn, resolved to go on the following morning, at the time mentioned by Swedenborg to the house of Olafsohn, to see whether Swedenborg's prediction was fulfilled. On the way thither he met the well-known servant of Olafsohn, who told him that his master had just then died, a fit of apoplexy had seized him, and had suddenly put an end to his life. The clock in Olafsohn's dwelling stopped at the very minute in which he had expired (4:45 AM!)." (Source quoted in Wilson Van Dusen's "The Presence of Other Worlds," pp. 163-64).

During England's great Methodist revival, John Wesley secretly wanted to meet Swedenborg. Swedenborg discovered this during a visit to the spirit world and wrote Wesley to arrange a meeting. Wesley was shocked by the letter because he had told no one of his secret desire to meet Swedenborg. Wesley had to decline Swedenborg's proposed time because he was about to visit America for revival meetings, but he suggested a meeting months later when he returned to England. Swedenborg sadly declined, saying that he had learned in the spirit world that the exact day on which he'd die and the date was during Wesley's mission trip to America. Swedenborg died quietly on the predicted day. Similarly, my Dad's Canadian friend, Helmut, always said he'd die on his 90th birthday, and that was precisely the day on which he died!

 

[Deadworm]

TWO PREMONITIONS DURING MY HARVARD DAYS:

(6) A young woman I had dated briefly in Boston asked me to take her to the New England Flower Show. Reluctantly, I agreed to do so. After I got all flowered out, I noticed a card reader at a table who charged $5 for a reading. Bored and curious, I walked up to her, paid the $5, and sat for her reading. Let me first confess that I have never done anything like this before or since, and would not recommend dabbling in any form of divination. I report this experience only to illustrate how the mind can have paranormal premonitions that it receives from its ability to operate outside the spatial-temporal realm.

The lady asked me to draw 3 cards. As she looked at them, she made these 3 points:
(a) She observed, "Stop seeing that woman (my date); she's not your type." I'm glad my date was not within earshot. The card reader was right, but how did she know that woman was not my wife?
(b) She then told me that very soon I'd be actively involved in working with children, and that I was ideally suited to do so. I skeptically thought, "I'm a single doctoral student with little time on my hands, and I don't want to have anything to do with children right now."
(c) Thirdly, she told me that I would soon be offered a job in a very exotic place, but that I should turn the offer down. I told her, "I haven't even applied for any jobs. I'm half way through my Harvard doctoral thesis and a job would take me away from my research." She smiled and reassured me that the job offer was imminent. I was stunned to discover that predictions (b) and (c) were fulfilled within a couple of days.

(b) The next day my dissertation advisor called me to ask why I was overdue on my latest dissertation chapter. I made excuses, but soon learned that this was not the real purpose of his call. He said that was the President of the Arlington Youth Soccer Association and that he needed a coach for an under-12 boys team. He had overheard me say at a social function that I used to play soccer in Canada. I reluctantly agreed to coach the team. It proved to be one of my most satisfying recreational experiences ever. Those boys became like the sons I'd never have as a single man. In my 2nd year of coaching the team, we made it all the way to the county championship game of our section of Greater Boston (losing 2-1). I coached youth soccer for the next 5 years and loved it.

(c) Within 2 days of my encounter with the card reader, I received a stunning phone call. It was from the chair of the department of religious studies at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. He was offering me a summer teaching position, which I declined. He got my name from someone at the University of Toronto. The card reader had told me that I'd receive a job offer from an "exotic" place; and to me, Newfoundland is about as exotic as it gets! She had rightly advised me to turn down the job offer.

 

[Deadworm]

(7) I was developing a friendship with Linda, an attractive young Harvard grad student who was separated from her unfaithful husband. She was wrestling with the question of whether it was right to divorce him. She had recently prayed about this and then felt prompted to quickly open her Bible to the first verse her eyes glanced--Jesus' prohibition against divorce in Mark 10:11-12. She asked me whether I thought his was a valid way to find divine guidance.

I responded that her method was called bibliomancy, which was a form of divination and, as such, might fit within the category of the Bible's prohibition against divination. On the other hand, St. Francis of Assisi had used this method in deciding whether a certain candidate was a good choice to be one of his followers; and I myself once used bibliomancy to receive a sign of God's guidance for a difficult decision and had immediately received a very specific answer that turned out to be valid.

While pondering what else to say, I suddenly blurted out, "Linda, give me yourBible!" In the split second, I held it, I instantly jammed my finger inside and found it pointing to Deuteronomy 24:1, which endorses divorce for anything the man finds objectionable in a wife. Now Linda's Bible was the thickest Bible I had ever seen because of all the detailed notes at the bottom of each page and I'd never seen it before. There is no way I could have found that verse in the split second I took to point my finger inside this Bible.

A stunned Linda wryly exclaimed, "So are you claiming that your guidance trumps my guidance?" I replied, "No, Linda, I once used this method and received effective guidance. But then I got obsessed and thought, "Wow, I'm going to use that method for all my major decisions!" To my dismay, I found that I could routinely instantly find a perfect verse to address the issue I had in mind. But this method lacked any predictive efficacy and proved to be useless as a tool for future guidance. So what I'm saying, Linda, is that there can be a thin line between genuine divine guidance and the meaningless paranormal ability to instantly find texts that suit your goal. So I'd advise you to study everything the Bible says on this subject and then listen for God's guiding impulse, but don't trust bibliomancy. It can be unreliable." Linda got the divorce. What amazes me in retrospect is my premonition that pulling this stunt on Linda would actually work very well.

I later shared this story with a professor friend and his wife and they challenged me to see if I could perform this feat with their Bible! They handed me their Bible and said, "Why don't you see if you can zap your finger onto a verse about some kind of grain or chemical? I did and twice in a row, my finger instantly pointed to a verse that mentioned "wheat!"

 

[Deadworm]

(8) While I was a theology professor in western NY, I met a woman who read auras. I didn't believe in aura reading; so I dismissed her claim that I would soon overreact to a disastrous experience. At the time I was renting a nice garage apartment. I had just bought a Toyota in Colorado Springs (while visiting my brother) and had driven it back to western New York. I suddenly had a premonition of a threat to my new car. I asked my landlord if I could park it in his driveway, but he refused. The next day, I was watching late night TV, when I heard a loud crash. A drunken 19-year-old girl had crashed into my car parked on the street and totaled it. The aura reader was right: I did overreact, partly because of my anticipation that something like this was about to happen. I later asked myself if my premonition was intended to prepare me to embrace this mishap in the right spirit.

 

[Deadworm]

(9) My next premonition was clearly the most edifying and I do consider it a manifestation of "the word of knowledge (1Corinthians 12:8)." I had just finished my year of teaching and was looking forward to a much needed vacation. It was Friday and I was contemplating travel plans, when I was overwhelmed by a premonition of an imminent death that would affect my life. But who and how? The more I tried to put my sense of dread out of my mind the stronger the impression grew. By Sunday, I feared it might be a premonition of the death of a close family member. That Monday morning, I was about to bolt out of my door to have breakfast at a favorite restaurant, when an inner voice seemed to shout, "Sit down! You are about to hear about the death!" Stunned, I sat down by the phone and instantly it rang. It was the professor in charge of our summer graduate theology program. She told me that Cassian, a visiting Catholic professor, had not shown up for his first class (Pauline Theology); so some students went to the on campus apartment where he was staying and got no answer to their knocking. University officials opened the apartment and found Cassian dead in bed. My colleague said she didn't want to cancel the class and that I was the only professor still around qualified to teach that course. I agreed and had an unusually fulfilling teaching experience with a group of very intellectually curious grad students. In this case, I feel that God was preparing me to sacrifice my vacation plans, despite my fatigue, to fulfill a teaching role I might otherwise have rejected.

 

[Deadworm]

(10) In June, 2007 I moved to eastern Washington to pastor a UMC church and thus be closer to my parents in Kelowna, BC. Some of my elderly parishioners complained that they sometimes missed lunch because the church bus arrived back too late at their assisted living place. I didn't know who to call about this problem. But that Monday I felt compelled to walk the mile to church by a circuitous route. As I walked past a small Christian book store, I felt an urge to enter it. For a reason I still can't understand, I told the owner about the problem. He smiled, replying, "My wife is in charge of that and I'll see that the problem gets taken care of." Now I'm sure I would have discovered who to call sometime that day, but this providential coincidence seemed like a loving wink from Jesus that He would assist me in my ministry there.

 

[Farine]

Hello Deadworm,
Better late than never, eh? Dinner preparation interrupted the OP video clip, but i had watched over half of it and had gotten the gist of it by that point. I did read the posts you wrote up to number 7. After awhile, the mind reacts like after one has smelled too many perfumes. I'm stopping mid-read to respond to what I've seen (and heard) to this point.

I do believe that premonitions and intuitions have a basis in reality. Being related by the one who had the premonitions has some advantages. For one thing, you know the moment when you had it and how that experience relates to the climaxing event --how and when the premonitions veracity is revealed. The other thing is that you have the outer reactions of the person (like Dallas in post 1) who discounted the warning to his peril. Linda (in post 7) did take your warning.

Back in 2008, I had the discussion with a Pastor that I held in high regard. His life was such a rich invitation to belong to Jesus. We were talking about discernment at the time, but his point was that if needed, God would open all the gifts to a Believer. Using your example, one might not have a regular gift of premonitions, but in extreme need, God would grant it.

I have two such 'extreme need' examples to add to this.
(1) My Mother was driving our family back was I was five years old on those old, two-lane, county highways. (One lane for each direction). Of course, back then, no one was wearing seat belts. And the cars were made of pure steel with no crumple zones. A car was barreling straight for her in her lane. There was a car in other lane so there was no free place to just switch lanes. My mother relates that in split second time, she received a 'video' of how she could ride the center divide and miss both cars. My father's feet were pounding the floor mat as he perceived the danger too (only he was the passenger). She zipped the car into the middle of the highway and missed both cars by two inches on either side. If the head-on collision had happened, I and my sister sleeping in the back seat would have died.

(2) It was June 2009. That was a rough year and about to get even more difficult. I had just one weekend to decide whether or not to return to my husband after living with my parents after his mid life crisis tossed me on the curb. The proper choice as regards to legacy, God's Will and long term happiness of all involved weighed heavily on me. The prayer was simple. God, you know. Now let me know. Going to church that Sunday had the expectations of the ages on it. God did not disappoint. The Bible story was Jacob sending his sons to Egypt for the second time. The key phrase "God usually puts your blessings in your lap or in your near vicinity. Sometimes you have to MOVE TO WHERE YOUR BLESSINGS ARE." And there it was. My answer.

It was harder doing it, of course. Moving the children, changing schools (again), shipping goods back across the country, making what explanations I could (for some people no amount of explaining would suffice) were some of my to-do list. God responded extravagantly. My husband received a new job two weeks after I announced I was returning. It would double his salary. (Remember how yucky the economy was in 2009). During the two week notice provided to his then job, his old employer imploded. All his coworkers were released as was the office space lease. My husband was the only one of those employees to have another position already aligned. There was more. I had prayed about the schools in the new neighborhood. Oh, the new neighborhood? We moved into the "Miracle Mile" area of Los Angeles. The school that was assigned to us was a high performance school, rated #2 of all the Los Angeles United School District in grade schools. Here's the history part of the premonition. It has been seven years past that time. I'm grateful and pleased that I didn't seek to end the marriage back in 2009. This was the right decision.

 

[Deadworm]

Farine, I like your analogy of "too much perfume." I hope you can eventually read about the other premonitions, too. I started this thread for 2 reasons:
(1) My premonitions raise the question of where the line is between natural psychic abilities and "the word of knowledge" charism (1 Corinthians 12:8).
(2) Despite this occasional uncertainty, my premonitions are probably my evidential experiences that best demonstrate the reality of a spiritual dimension because they seem to be based on a perspective that is not limited by time.

My most life-changing paranormal experience ever is recounted on post #2 in my thread "Speaking in Tongues and Spirit Baptism." But if I could persuade readers to read only one of my offerings, I would choose the 3 YouTube videos identified in the first post of that thread. For anyone who wants more of God, those videos expand the limits of prior expectations to a breath-taking degree.

 

[Farine]

I hope more people will open up and put their experiences in written form - whether it is memoirs for their friends and family or here with the anonymous nom de plume. That God knows everything and is the Father of Spirits shouldn't surprise too many people that He would use that foreknowledge for our benefit. If people are walking in close fellowship with God, there should be an event or two that had an advantage from God's positioning, right?

If more people related their authentic experiences, then perhaps when the Spirit spoke into the lives of these readers, they would not be so shocked or unmanned by the contact that they would positively respond to it. (Poor Dallas)

You have related enough content between these posts and the ones in "Finding the Right Prayer Partner" that I know your focus is consistently on the Lord. That is, if an unpure spirit attempted to give you a premonition, I know you would "test the spirits" and not be deceived. There is this Kingdom of Heaven dialect where I recognize a fellow Believer who regularly hangs out with Jesus. It shows up in how you communicate.

it is this one area of premonitions where counterfeit gifts seems to be the easiest to pass off. The classic image of a gypsy woman in colorful bohemian garb, rubbing a crystal ball, comes to mind. A college room mate wanted to do a tarot reading and I declined. She did one for most of the rest of them who were simply curious. Life has enough unsettled, quirky elements to say "You just can't make these things up." Real events with real risks and real peril demand some of these quirky elements just to survive. Saying "I will never ask God about the future," is a never voted most likely to be busted. Ah, but how will you go about it. For you, you have this gift. (I believe you.) For me, as for others, it is not that simple. How do we approach this problem and avoid the counterfeit?

 

[cannot be known]

I have had premonitions that are difficult to describe, some of them accurate, some of them i seem to be able to prevent from happening because i pray against them.

One premonition that still stumps me a little bit: i'm concerned someone will try to give me their daughter in exchange for something. i don't know what, who, or when. i can't recall exactly how this information came to me either.

Another premonition: a couple i know may divorce. i have prayed against this one and that seems to have worked, (at least with regard to taking the matter off my mind.) But i can still see it happening and I have my doubts that the husband is actually a christian. Compounding the problems with this particular example: I think his wife has noticed that there is spiritual enmity between myself and her husband, and i also find her attractive. so right there is two opportunities for sin to provide the mechanism for "spiritual weird stuff" such as premonitions to happen.

The first example Farine gave in post #11 i would not call that a premonition at all. i would call that a way of escape was provided.
I have at least one example of some foreknowledge provided while driving as well, but nothing that required me to do anything, other than yield to oblivious drivers.

But I don't consider clear and direct foreknowledge to be what is commonly called a premonition.


I am open to the possibility that God will communicate to someone through what they call a premonition, in order to confound them, and draw them to him. I have seen this happen with an athiest friend of mine, his case was through a dream. the dream indirectly related to an argument he had with a friend of his the very next day, and he found this to be quite interesting.

coincidences to me are useless btw. but sometimes they are interesting and cannot be quickly ignored. if a coincidence confirms a premonition i am doubly suspicious.


anyhow, back to premonitions:
A friend of mine, she and i had a mental link for perhaps 3 years. about two years ago i complained to God about such things, they went away for a short time, then returned. about a year ago i complained to her that there was still a soft telepathic link between her and I, since then I have had no more premonitions about her. I suppose it is unfortunate that I never kept a journal because I think there was indeed better than 50% odds that if I felt something bad was going to happen, she would call me asking for help within a week. I was not really bothered by these matters, but it just got old after a while. For what its worth about 6 months ago i was trying to find a good excuse to be late for a meeting, she calls me and her car wont start. the fact that i had no premonition of her call was liberating in a way, So i took my sweet time diagnosing her car, hammered on the starter, got it working, i was an hour late to the meeting, and i replaced her starter a day later.

the most obviously correct premonition that i had, involved my brother. i think there was at least a month between my premonition and my brother's rear shaft drive on his motorcycle locking up. I chastised him him about that, he said "well it did feel a little gritty" well, no oil in the gear box will do that. he later confessed to driving that thing at 90mph. After the fact, I told my brother that I had prayed against what i had seen a month or so earlier, and he did accept my testimony.

 

[follicallychalnged]

Premonitions are a pain in the neck for me . I feel the movement of evil that often times affect me or those I care about . I never am privy to who what when or where . All I can do is be aware and watch and try to emotionally mentally prepare for what it is that comes my way . The only Time it was clear to me is when my child was in danger . At that time all I could was get out of bed and pray . I was to far away to reach her for help . But that is another story.

 

[Deadworm]

(11) I have left out one premonition that still astounds me. It came to me shortly after my experience of Spirit baptism recorded in the 2nd post of my thread "Speaking in Tongues and Spirit Baptism." I encourage readers to check out that whole report --and thread. In that experience, during a period of faith-crippling doubt, God spoke to me more clearly than at any other time in my life. As I posted in that thread, God told me, "You are desperate for answers to life's vexing questions. But right now answers aren't good for you. They will cause you to live from your head rather from your heart. What I want you to do is just live the big questions, and they will lead you to the center of my heart."

A few months later, I got a severe retina detachment while playing soccer for my high school and had to lie on my side for 3 days on trains from Winnipeg to Boston, where I received successful surgery. An Armenian couple took me in as a total stranger there, while I convalesced after the operation. They drove me around Boston, and when they drove me by Harvard, I somehow knew that God wanted me to study there. After my MDiv from Princeton, I fulfilled God's will by getting my Harvard doctorate in New Testament, Judaism, and Christian Origins.

But how could I gain admission? I wasn't that good a high school student. But when I returned to school, God revealed to me that I would attain the highest GPA in the province of Manitoba. My cousin Eldon reminded me decades later that I shared that revelation with him shortly thereafter. I experienced this premonition not out of a sense of pride, but as an incredible gift from God to fulfill His mandate to live the big questions until they led me to the center of His heart. My experience of Spirit baptism did much more then bless me and tame my doubts; it also heightened my intellectual capabilities and gave me "the word of knowledge" (1 Corinthians 12:8) that has led to all the premonitions posted on this thread.

 

[itdepends]

Interesting thread.

Here is my take on "premonitions" ... and I'll spare my own accounts and experiences, and cut right to the chase:

I believe there is a difference between receiving special insight, revelation, etc from God or via some spiritual entity, verses "having your eyes and ears opened" to where you "see" and "hear" a much larger gamut of spiritual information. Let me explain.

Someone who is essentially spiritually deaf and blind, will more or less be oblivious to the spiritual realities around them. They will interact with the world around them, use their feelings, thoughts, mental capacity, etc, in order to make sense of things. When certain spiritual phenomena take place, it will remain "unexplained" and that may be the best solution they ever come to in their experience. HOWEVER ... if God wills it, or if other entities will it, that person may be used or shown information spiritually in certain instances that they otherwise would not have been privy to. They could be given knowledge, revelation, insight, etc ... in moments, but remain blind and deaf to such things otherwise the rest of the time. It would be like opening your eyes for a few moments out of your life, while the rest of the time you keep your eye lids closed. In this scenario, such a person may be ignorant as to the source of their revelation, or insight ... they may just assume it's "all God" or "all evil", or whatever their flavor of belief happens to be which colors their perspective.

Someone who has their spiritual eyes and spiritual ears open, however ... they will be open. It is not a matter of receiving insight, revelation, and knowledge here and there in scattered moments. This is a person who is seeing and hearing all manner of spiritual activity around them. Their experience is far different from other people. They will "see" and "hear" whatever is happening spiritually around them, regardless of the source. Whatever is in front of their "eyes", they will see. Whatever is "making sound", they will hear. They will basically need to learn to discern what is going on around them spiritually, to make sense of it ... much like an infant must learn to discern their own environment. All the sights, sounds, languages being spoken ... they sound like babble to the infant. They rely on other ways of discerning in order to try and make sense of their environment. But eventually, they learn the language, they learn to pick up on cues, they learn to identify what is happening to them ... before they have words for it, they learn.

The person who has their eyes and ears opened, at first is often confused ... there is so much input to discern and make sense of. Not so with the person who receives a bit here and there over the span of their life, that person views those events as special and unique ... and they are ... but by and large, their normal experience is "mere flesh" day in and out. Their feelings, thoughts, mental ability, etc, is pretty much what they have to rely on.

The person who has their eyes and ears opened, to where they "cannot be closed" ... is like a new creature, and they have an added element that others do not have. Other mechanisms to discern what is going on in their environment.

For the person of "flesh" ... who is essentially a non-spiritual person ... they must rely upon feeling, reason, etc. For various reasons, I happen to believe they can still interact with spiritual phenomena around them, they are just not able to identify it as such. It registers, but they don't EXPERIENCE it. Imaging someone being cut with a knife ... but they have no ability to feel pain. They can see the cut, see the blood, and their mind registers it as "I'm cut". But they do not feel it. They have to put forth mental effort to recognize what is happening to the. The "spiritual" person, who is "turned on all the time" ... experienced the cut. The slice. It has a distinct way their spirit experiences it. Their body still registers it ... they still feel a certain way about it, their mind tries to make sense of it, etc. But, they experience it very different from the average person.

Their experience is not bound to the way we normally experience causality ... their experience may pick up on events before they happen, for example. They may have visions, dreams, and premonitions ... that involve symbolism and analogy. This is the brain trying to make sense of the spiritual information it is picking up on, that the spirit is picking up on. It is translating it into a language that your "flesh" can understand.

In my opinion, such experiences are not that "mystical", in the sense that they are mysterious and often treated as they they are spectacular or extraordinary. In my opinion, the explanations for them are rather simple and "demystifying" them makes them easier to understand. Let me explain further ...

In my experience ... there are types of premonitions and revelations that a person can have, which are detailed and come to pass with 100% accuracy. There is little to no symbolism involved, and the manner in which they are received/seen/etc are often rather dramatic. These are often the "God spoke to me, it was clear as a bell !" experiences. In my opinion, and I'm trying not to get too controversial here, but treat this in a very basic way ... in my opinion, God does indeed know certain things before they happen and can give reliable and accurate information in advance to it happening. I know that may seem like it goes without saying, but still.

Other spiritual entities ... what people would call angels, demons, and of course humans with spirits ... their knowledge is limited, in my opinion. They know a LOT more than the average human being walking around, however, and I believe they rely upon incomplete information. Some may rely upon predictive power ... looking at odds, understanding human behavior, and making assessments based on that in order to "tell the future". For example, it's often pointed out that cold reading and psychics rely upon the Barnum effect in order to make it appear as though they have some psychic ability. Not only that, but mentalists often make use of body language and physical cues in order to "predict" certain things about people, etc. In my opinion, spiritual entities are masters at understanding the human condition, and are able to predict certain outcomes for a person from looking at their physical body in detail ... not just from the outside, but from the "inside". Things like heart right, brain activity, etc ... can all be taken into account in order to make predictions about certain scenarios and situations and how to manipulate them, etc.

Having said all of that ... the spiritual person who has "ears" and "eyes" ... sees and hears such things. They may not always be seeing and hearing what God is saying to them, they may be seeing and hearing what other spiritual entities are saying and doing in the environment. This information ... is subject to change. It is not going to come to pass in the same way that information shown by God will come to pass ... if you lean on the side that God is not a liar nor is He playing games, the premonitions and spiritual insight that come to a person, but do not come to pass or may end up fluffing out into nothing ... may not always point to an active imagination only, they may point to a spiritual person actually hearing and seeing spiritual information, it's just not of God.

An example would be: let's say you get a strong spiritual sense, that something bad is going to happen to your neighbor tomorrow if they get on some flight. You warn them, tell them ... they blow you off, and get on the flight. Nothing apparently happens. Was it just your imagination ? Are you a "false prophet" ? It's possible it was just your imagination. Or, it's possible you were picking up on "spiritual chatter" ... you were experiencing spiritual information being discussed, planned, etc ... but it wasn't of God, rather, it was other entities. And you warned the person, and they changed their mind about what they were going to do (the spirits did). Of course, if you never warned the person, perhaps they would have carried through and something bad would have happened to your neighbor. Why ? Because you didn't shine a light on their activities.

Again ... the person whose eyes and ears are functioning, they hear and see whatever is around them. They don't get to pick and choose what they hear and see. And they are not spiritually "turned off", merely waiting for God or other to give them insight and revelation ever so often. No, they see and hear whatever is around them. They may pick up on the good, and the bad.

An analogy: let's say I'm an average citizen, and I walk into an Italian restaurant one day, and overhear what appear to be some mob guys talking in the corner about some horriffic thing they are going to do the next day. Suppose they realize I heard them, and I get out of that restaurant and alert the authorities. Do you think they would still continue through with their plan ? They would most likely change their plan, or, they may do something similar and use it as a distraction, misdirection. If they know the cops will be looking for it to happen, they may use it to their advantage. Had you never said anything, then perhaps they would have merely targeted you and tried to silence you, but they would have carried through with their plan.

Some premonitions are like this ... you pick up on the "spiritual chatter" of enemy spirits, what they are planning, what they are trying to do to others around them. Pointing it out ... may make them change course, change direction. The "spiritual information" you get in such circumstances, isn't coming from God ... and demystifying it from a "it's a gift I have from God" ... makes it much more simpler: it's no more a gift than your physical eyes and ears are. No more a gift than wings on a bird that they use to fly. Spiritual people, have spiritual eyes and ears, and they hear and see things spiritually around them. You don't pick and choose what you hear and see ... which means, you will hear and see all manner of things, some of God, some aren't. Trying to make sense of and discern the information, is where people get confused, because it may take time to make sense of all the spiritual information around you. And some people are eager (for various reasons) to claim "God" on everything, and begin to think they are some superhero spiritual person with these amazing abilities, when realistically, it is BASIC. Basic spirituality ... to be able to see and hear. Making sense of WHAT you are seeing and hearing, and the source and origin and what it means, is another matter, and that takes time and experience.

Being "spiritually turned on" can apply to anyone who is, regardless of their background, culture, etc. Many people who are spiritually turned on, in my opinion, begin to think all manner of things ... they are empaths, psychics, are channeling other spirits, have angel spirit guides, are speaking with God, are God, are themselves an angel, etc. I have seen the gamut as far as what people claim. And they often begin to confuse their own imaginations and feelings with their own spiritual ability, because they get so caught up in it all. In making sense of their spiritual nature, and what they are experiencing, it may effect them any number of ways, and they may draw any number of conclusions from it. However, demystifying it, it's as simple and basic as "seeing and hearing". I could go on and on, but at this point I'll stop

As a side note, I will say I find it interesting concerning your retina detachment. That is a very specific injury you got ... interesting.

I've typed enough

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

I'm a seer and an empath. I believe it's a gift from God for all I do is God's work with them.

 

[katyn]

Interesting thread.

Here is my take on "premonitions" ... and I'll spare my own accounts and experiences, and cut right to the chase:

I believe there is a difference between receiving special insight, revelation, etc from God or via some spiritual entity, verses "having your eyes and ears opened" to where you "see" and "hear" a much larger gamut of spiritual information. Let me explain.

Someone who is essentially spiritually deaf and blind, will more or less be oblivious to the spiritual realities around them. They will interact with the world around them, use their feelings, thoughts, mental capacity, etc, in order to make sense of things. When certain spiritual phenomena take place, it will remain "unexplained" and that may be the best solution they ever come to in their experience. HOWEVER ... if God wills it, or if other entities will it, that person may be used or shown information spiritually in certain instances that they otherwise would not have been privy to. They could be given knowledge, revelation, insight, etc ... in moments, but remain blind and deaf to such things otherwise the rest of the time. It would be like opening your eyes for a few moments out of your life, while the rest of the time you keep your eye lids closed. In this scenario, such a person may be ignorant as to the source of their revelation, or insight ... they may just assume it's "all God" or "all evil", or whatever their flavor of belief happens to be which colors their perspective.

Someone who has their spiritual eyes and spiritual ears open, however ... they will be open. It is not a matter of receiving insight, revelation, and knowledge here and there in scattered moments. This is a person who is seeing and hearing all manner of spiritual activity around them. Their experience is far different from other people. They will "see" and "hear" whatever is happening spiritually around them, regardless of the source. Whatever is in front of their "eyes", they will see. Whatever is "making sound", they will hear. They will basically need to learn to discern what is going on around them spiritually, to make sense of it ... much like an infant must learn to discern their own environment. All the sights, sounds, languages being spoken ... they sound like babble to the infant. They rely on other ways of discerning in order to try and make sense of their environment. But eventually, they learn the language, they learn to pick up on cues, they learn to identify what is happening to them ... before they have words for it, they learn.

The person who has their eyes and ears opened, at first is often confused ... there is so much input to discern and make sense of. Not so with the person who receives a bit here and there over the span of their life, that person views those events as special and unique ... and they are ... but by and large, their normal experience is "mere flesh" day in and out. Their feelings, thoughts, mental ability, etc, is pretty much what they have to rely on.

The person who has their eyes and ears opened, to where they "cannot be closed" ... is like a new creature, and they have an added element that others do not have. Other mechanisms to discern what is going on in their environment.

For the person of "flesh" ... who is essentially a non-spiritual person ... they must rely upon feeling, reason, etc. For various reasons, I happen to believe they can still interact with spiritual phenomena around them, they are just not able to identify it as such. It registers, but they don't EXPERIENCE it. Imaging someone being cut with a knife ... but they have no ability to feel pain. They can see the cut, see the blood, and their mind registers it as "I'm cut". But they do not feel it. They have to put forth mental effort to recognize what is happening to the. The "spiritual" person, who is "turned on all the time" ... experienced the cut. The slice. It has a distinct way their spirit experiences it. Their body still registers it ... they still feel a certain way about it, their mind tries to make sense of it, etc. But, they experience it very different from the average person.

Their experience is not bound to the way we normally experience causality ... their experience may pick up on events before they happen, for example. They may have visions, dreams, and premonitions ... that involve symbolism and analogy. This is the brain trying to make sense of the spiritual information it is picking up on, that the spirit is picking up on. It is translating it into a language that your "flesh" can understand.

In my opinion, such experiences are not that "mystical", in the sense that they are mysterious and often treated as they they are spectacular or extraordinary. In my opinion, the explanations for them are rather simple and "demystifying" them makes them easier to understand. Let me explain further ...

In my experience ... there are types of premonitions and revelations that a person can have, which are detailed and come to pass with 100% accuracy. There is little to no symbolism involved, and the manner in which they are received/seen/etc are often rather dramatic. These are often the "God spoke to me, it was clear as a bell !" experiences. In my opinion, and I'm trying not to get too controversial here, but treat this in a very basic way ... in my opinion, God does indeed know certain things before they happen and can give reliable and accurate information in advance to it happening. I know that may seem like it goes without saying, but still.

Other spiritual entities ... what people would call angels, demons, and of course humans with spirits ... their knowledge is limited, in my opinion. They know a LOT more than the average human being walking around, however, and I believe they rely upon incomplete information. Some may rely upon predictive power ... looking at odds, understanding human behavior, and making assessments based on that in order to "tell the future". For example, it's often pointed out that cold reading and psychics rely upon the Barnum effect in order to make it appear as though they have some psychic ability. Not only that, but mentalists often make use of body language and physical cues in order to "predict" certain things about people, etc. In my opinion, spiritual entities are masters at understanding the human condition, and are able to predict certain outcomes for a person from looking at their physical body in detail ... not just from the outside, but from the "inside". Things like heart right, brain activity, etc ... can all be taken into account in order to make predictions about certain scenarios and situations and how to manipulate them, etc.

Having said all of that ... the spiritual person who has "ears" and "eyes" ... sees and hears such things. They may not always be seeing and hearing what God is saying to them, they may be seeing and hearing what other spiritual entities are saying and doing in the environment. This information ... is subject to change. It is not going to come to pass in the same way that information shown by God will come to pass ... if you lean on the side that God is not a liar nor is He playing games, the premonitions and spiritual insight that come to a person, but do not come to pass or may end up fluffing out into nothing ... may not always point to an active imagination only, they may point to a spiritual person actually hearing and seeing spiritual information, it's just not of God.

An example would be: let's say you get a strong spiritual sense, that something bad is going to happen to your neighbor tomorrow if they get on some flight. You warn them, tell them ... they blow you off, and get on the flight. Nothing apparently happens. Was it just your imagination ? Are you a "false prophet" ? It's possible it was just your imagination. Or, it's possible you were picking up on "spiritual chatter" ... you were experiencing spiritual information being discussed, planned, etc ... but it wasn't of God, rather, it was other entities. And you warned the person, and they changed their mind about what they were going to do (the spirits did). Of course, if you never warned the person, perhaps they would have carried through and something bad would have happened to your neighbor. Why ? Because you didn't shine a light on their activities.

Again ... the person whose eyes and ears are functioning, they hear and see whatever is around them. They don't get to pick and choose what they hear and see. And they are not spiritually "turned off", merely waiting for God or other to give them insight and revelation ever so often. No, they see and hear whatever is around them. They may pick up on the good, and the bad.

An analogy: let's say I'm an average citizen, and I walk into an Italian restaurant one day, and overhear what appear to be some mob guys talking in the corner about some horriffic thing they are going to do the next day. Suppose they realize I heard them, and I get out of that restaurant and alert the authorities. Do you think they would still continue through with their plan ? They would most likely change their plan, or, they may do something similar and use it as a distraction, misdirection. If they know the cops will be looking for it to happen, they may use it to their advantage. Had you never said anything, then perhaps they would have merely targeted you and tried to silence you, but they would have carried through with their plan.

Some premonitions are like this ... you pick up on the "spiritual chatter" of enemy spirits, what they are planning, what they are trying to do to others around them. Pointing it out ... may make them change course, change direction. The "spiritual information" you get in such circumstances, isn't coming from God ... and demystifying it from a "it's a gift I have from God" ... makes it much more simpler: it's no more a gift than your physical eyes and ears are. No more a gift than wings on a bird that they use to fly. Spiritual people, have spiritual eyes and ears, and they hear and see things spiritually around them. You don't pick and choose what you hear and see ... which means, you will hear and see all manner of things, some of God, some aren't. Trying to make sense of and discern the information, is where people get confused, because it may take time to make sense of all the spiritual information around you. And some people are eager (for various reasons) to claim "God" on everything, and begin to think they are some superhero spiritual person with these amazing abilities, when realistically, it is BASIC. Basic spirituality ... to be able to see and hear. Making sense of WHAT you are seeing and hearing, and the source and origin and what it means, is another matter, and that takes time and experience.

Being "spiritually turned on" can apply to anyone who is, regardless of their background, culture, etc. Many people who are spiritually turned on, in my opinion, begin to think all manner of things ... they are empaths, psychics, are channeling other spirits, have angel spirit guides, are speaking with God, are God, are themselves an angel, etc. I have seen the gamut as far as what people claim. And they often begin to confuse their own imaginations and feelings with their own spiritual ability, because they get so caught up in it all. In making sense of their spiritual nature, and what they are experiencing, it may effect them any number of ways, and they may draw any number of conclusions from it. However, demystifying it, it's as simple and basic as "seeing and hearing". I could go on and on, but at this point I'll stop

As a side note, I will say I find it interesting concerning your retina detachment. That is a very specific injury you got ... interesting.

I've typed enough

 

[katyn]

However, when one is focused on God and calls out to Him in spirit and in truth, and believes in walking closely w Him, that person may still experience things from other spirits. However, if that person is asking God Himself to make things 100 percent clear to them, I would tend to believe that God would help them to discern correctly...although I feel that as much as we would love to know the exact timing one of our 'premonitions' is to take place, God will only tell you what He wants you to know and sometimes He will give one a very certain premonition but then the exact time it will take place is not clear.