Mystical experiences and what it means to you.

[Bikerdelic]

Now this next subject can be a tricky one to ask people normally as it raises a few eyebrows in general conversation but I ask has anyone whether infj or not has ever had a mystical experience and is willing to share any insights into what they think it was and what they think it means to them?
I have learnt from past forums that many people have experienced various mystical experiences that have changed their perception of life. It is interesting to note that some people describe such experiences in relation to their own cultural background and belief systems, such as Christian cultures perceiving Angelic experiences whilst in the Far East it might be perceived as Satori, a moment of enlightenment. Well I'll start the ball rolling and say that I had a strange mystical experience when I was 12 whilst staying in an old converted stable at my Aunts, but of course it is pointless to explain every detail other than feeling one night when very upset and homesick and feeling a profound presence in the room that on recollection seemed to relate a feeling of love and oneness with the universe. At the time it greatly calmed me down and got me out of a bit of bother, but has always remained a constant reminder of the mysteries of life and has served like a spiritual beckon on darker occasions.
Does anyone else have similar experiences and could the INFJ- INFP personality trait be either responsible for this mystical trait or predisposed to experiencing it? What are your take on the subject of the mystical?

 

[Sloe Djinn]

I've never had any of my own that I can recall. I do however have friends who have recounted peculiar instances of insight that are inexplicable to me. For example, one of my friends told me about stuff like house hunting with his gf. Out of nowhere he got this feeling and said, "We can't live here. There was a rape" with no prior knowledge of the history of the place. Lo and behold, the real-estate agent confirmed that it had actually happened. While I would normally think to myself "That sumbitch is fulla shit", he's a long-time friend and there would be no reason for him to lie about it. So, I don't rule out some paranormal forms of intuition, but I don't think I gots da shinin'.

 

[SealHammer]

Does anyone else have similar experiences and could the INFJ- INFP personality trait be either responsible for this mystical trait or predisposed to experiencing it? What are your take on the subject of the mystical?

No and no. I do plenty of following my gut and inferring in order to discover or do things which seem insane or improbable, but I don't claim to be a psychic, mystic, or anything of that nature. Frankly, I find the whole idea to be absurd.

 

[muir]

I think that what is called 'impossible' is only what hasn't yet been understood

I think we don't yet understand the nature of reality and that once we do phenomena such as 'psychic' activity will make perfect sense

I think mystics are like the hypothesisers and the scientists then have the task of building the evidential scaffolding upto those hypotheses to support or destroy them

I'm sure we've all had weird things happen to us whether it is moments of what would be described 'psychic' insight perhaps for example into the future which seem to point to time being an illusion or things of the 6th sense nature where you feel eyes in the back of your head and you turn around and pinpoint the person in a flash even in a packed room that is sure enough staring at you

I don't think these things are 'magic' or 'paranormal' i think we just haven't yet got an understanding of reality that can embrace these phenomena

I've had enough strange stuff happen and heard aboput enough strange stuff that i'm now convinced that there is more going on than meets the eye

I think one interesting area is supposed alien abduction. Of course i am open to the possibility that such things might have physically occured but i think that listening to the experiences of many people experimenting with psychadelics it seems to be a common experience that people can dissassociate enough from their body that they can be somewhere else for example in a UFO where there are entities.

I think that people who have had alien abduction experiences are having a spontaneous psychadelic experience for example created by the naturally occuring DMT in their brain that is also responsible for dreams and near death experiences.

If our consciousness is not created by our brain then our brain is merely a vessel. This would mean that our consciousness could operate in other realms, dimensions and frequencies.

So as far as i see it all possibilities are on the table but for a society that is so scientifically primitive that it can't even adequately explain its own origins to say that it knows where all the parameters of 'realtiy' lie is i feel ridiculous

We don't know....how much do we really know? At the frontiers of science is theory....its a wild west, full of possiblity

 

[SealHammer]

So as far as i see it all possibilities are on the table but for a society that is so scientifically primitive that it can't even adequately explain its own origins to say that it knows where all the parameters of 'realtiy' lie is i feel ridiculous

But... but no scientist does that

 

[muir]

But... but no scientist does that

No true scientist should

But some lay people seem pretty sure of themselves on that score and i'd like to know how they can be so sure

 

[Rcs6r]

Mystical experiences and what it means to you.

Low blood sugar...

 

[Bikerdelic]

Interesting replies.
Well first I must say that I don't believe myself to be psychic as my line of thinking whether spiritual or not is far more scientific based than my posts could ever reveal, although I know that I am very intuitive, and intuitional. Firstly I like to mention that I never suffered from any delusional mental health issues when I was young, so my experience was genuinely experienced and was not a dream or fantasy.
I also believe that most people could have experienced similar phenomena but are uncomfortable about expressing their experience to others for fear of being mocked or thought of as liars or perhaps being crazy.
So I don't quite understand how the psychic bit came into the subject, as mystics are not psychic but are intuitive and intuitional in nature. I feel being a psychic is somewhat another subject matter.
We have five senses, taste, touch, hearing, sight, smell, the last sense where all these other 5 senses are processed is the sixth sense (not a psychic sense) being the mind.
So natural mind essence is your sixth sense and not some supernatural factuality.
Interesting that no one seems so far to have any experiences of this, thought their might be some INFJ or INFP folk that may of experienced similar spiritual moments.
When I was young I used to day dream a lot, which I later found out was our natural means of meditating, as the original Buddha also day dreamed as a young boy.
So I feel the process of day dreaming alike meditation can build up ones intuitional abilities, so that when you are young, before the real onslaught of puberty sets in where you become distracted by sensual things (Sex in other words) there is a moment when ones young brain is developed enough to have a moment of realisation and a brief flash of enlightenment.
This is how I reason what happened to me, as I believe it was as the Japanese Zen master described as a Satori experience.
This Satori experience is open to anyone, as it isn't about being psychic but about awakening ones true awareness.
Therefore to me the experience was more about recognising my own Buddha nature (Intrinsic human nature) than about meeting Angels or Gods, but it took me 20 odd years to work out the experience. When I meditated I feel the same oneness of the universe and myself.

 

[SealHammer]

No true scientist should

But some lay people seem pretty sure of themselves on that score and i'd like to know how they can be so sure

Because they lack the experience and knowledge to understand how wrong and narrow-minded such a position is. It's almost a case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Interesting replies.
Well first I must say that I don't believe myself to be psychic as my line of thinking whether spiritual or not is far more scientific based than my posts could ever reveal, although I know that I am very intuitive, and intuitional. Firstly I like to mention that I never suffered from any delusional mental health issues when I was young, so my experience was genuinely experienced and was not a dream or fantasy.
I also believe that most people could have experienced similar phenomena but are uncomfortable about expressing their experience to others for fear of being mocked or thought of as liars or perhaps being crazy.
So I don't quite understand how the psychic bit came into the subject, as mystics are not psychic but are intuitive and intuitional in nature. I feel being a psychic is somewhat another subject matter.
We have five senses, taste, touch, hearing, sight, smell, the last sense where all these other 5 senses are processed is the sixth sense (not a psychic sense) being the mind.
So natural mind essence is your sixth sense and not some supernatural factuality.
Interesting that no one seems so far to have any experiences of this, thought their might be some INFJ or INFP folk that may of experienced similar spiritual moments.
When I was young I used to day dream a lot, which I later found out was our natural means of meditating, as the original Buddha also day dreamed as a young boy.
So I feel the process of day dreaming alike meditation can build up ones intuitional abilities, so that when you are young, before the real onslaught of puberty sets in where you become distracted by sensual things (Sex in other words) there is a moment when ones young brain is developed enough to have a moment of realisation and a brief flash of enlightenment.
This is how I reason what happened to me, as I believe it was as the Japanese Zen master described as a Satori experience.
This Satori experience is open to anyone, as it isn't about being psychic but about awakening ones true awareness.
Therefore to me the experience was more about recognising my own Buddha nature (Intrinsic human nature) than about meeting Angels or Gods, but it took me 20 odd years to work out the experience. When I meditated I feel the same oneness of the universe and myself.

Ohhhh, I think I'm starting to understand where you're coming from now. Is that really mystical? I guess it must be.
Reminds me of how I like to sit under the stars late at night and be in awe at the size and interconnectedness of the universe. Maybe you and I are doing the same thing.

 

[Bikerdelic]

Ohhhh, I think I'm starting to understand where you're coming from now. Is that really mystical? I guess it must be.
Reminds me of how I like to sit under the stars late at night and be in awe at the size and interconnectedness of the universe. Maybe you and I are doing the same thing.

Yes Sealhammer it is very much like what you describe but perhaps much stronger in effect, that it could change your own emotional mood instantly, with very profound sense of of a benevolent presence that cannot be described but was only felt. When everything makes sense for that moment, then we start to forget what insights we have gleaned from the experience. It could have been me realising full reality before my thoughts senses and emotional attachments distract me once again back into the flow of everyday life and growing up. I Remember that this experience has greatly helped me in the practise of meditation, as I feel the thoughts and ideas and emotions that I felt during the experience were spiritual in essence, and that they certainly fitted into later spiritual ideas I would read much later in my life. So perhaps the Mystical is within us all, and its more to do with awareness and ones ability to question existence at a young age.

 

[Sensiko]

are infx's predisposed to mysticism... including the one infj i know irl and the peeps on the forum i'd say... probably... i've known many enfx's irl that are open mystical experiences too fwiw...

have i had mystical experiences... yes... but the times i feel most plugged into the 'source' are certain rare occasions when i get in the zone playing and writing music... it doesn't happen often... but when i tune into it, it's like the universe finally makes sense and i'm hyperaware of myself... the molecules around me... the molecules halfway around the world... God... it's hard to describe but it's a tangible feeling that goes through my being... like i'm just an instrument of the Creator... a channel... like my purpose in life is clear... i know where things are going and i know where they are coming from... it's a powerful energy... and sometimes i feel as though i'm close to passing out afterwards... i'm sure i sound like a kook to some people but it's a state of being that's hard to describe with words *shrugs*

incidentally the last time i was in this state i wrote a song in about 5 minutes for someone... it wrote itself... when i went to record it there were evps in the recording... there was a voice that was not my own saying a clear message that made complete sense in regards to the song and the person it was written for... still gives me the shivers...

 

[Bikerdelic]

.]are infx's predisposed to mysticism... including the one infj i know irl and the peeps on the forum i'd say... probably... i've known many enfx's irl that are open mystical experiences too fwiw...

have i had mystical experiences... yes... but the times i feel most plugged into the 'source' are certain rare occasions when i get in the zone playing and writing music... it doesn't happen often... but when i tune into it, it's like the universe finally makes sense and i'm hyperaware of myself... the molecules around me... the molecules halfway around the world... God... it's hard to describe but it's a tangible feeling that goes through my being... like i'm just an instrument of the Creator... a channel... like my purpose in life is clear... i know where things are going and i know where they are coming from... it's a powerful energy... and sometimes i feel as though i'm close to passing out afterwards... i'm sure i sound like a kook to some people but it's a state of being that's hard to describe with words *shrugs*

incidentally the last time i was in this state i wrote a song in about 5 minutes for someone... it wrote itself... when i went to record it there were evps in the recording... there was a voice that was not my own saying a clear message that made complete sense in regards to the song and the person it was written for... still gives me the shivers

Interesting Sensiko, I get similar experiences when writing certain types of poetry, especially those poems that simply just appear within the mind spontaneously like a Spiritual moment in themselves.
I would agree that the profoundest experiences are the rarest , but with me they seem to happen when I am in trouble or in emotional distress. When I guess my own egotism has no more answers for life and in those moments of confusion I see the true reality of the universe that is very beautiful and awe- inspiring. It has saved my life when I was younger, when I had much emotional stuff to get through, so although I refrain from the idea of Guardian Angels, I understand how such ideas could form in other peoples perceptions. I have spoken to many people online with similar experiences, and noticing how people translate their experiences into their own cultural or religious understanding, so if a person with Christian beliefs had this experience they may well perceive it as an Angelic experience, whilst a person who believes in Buddhism might think of it as a moment of enlightenment. It is therefore interesting to see how people perceive these experiences differently.
I would also say that such experiences are similar in spiritual tone or understanding as near death experiences, where the person is left with a spiritually developed perception that stays with them through the rest of their lives. It is a field of Human consciousness that fascinates me.

 

[Bikerdelic]

Well I'll leave you with some food for thought.
Here's a video with the late Alan watts talking about the cosmos and ourselves, I think he describes its better than I can do myself.
[video=youtube;8YdDLHrMMzs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YdDLHrMMzs[/video]

 

[ThisIsWhoIAm]

When people call a phenomenon *mystic* they take it out of the rules of physics and of the known world and treat it as it is something out of this world.
I don't find this to be correct. There is more to life than what each and every one of us thinks and believes. Some grasp more than most, but it doesn't mean they grasp things that are "out of this world". Just phenomenons that are unexplained by science yet, that's all. Important to note - some mystics are full of shit, as well.

 

[Kgal]

The following experiences of mine suggest to me we can communicate telepathically if our conditioning always being rational wasn't in the way.

Although I’ve never had children - curiously two of my “mystical” experiences involve them.

The first one is brief:

I was walking into Walmart - a huge grocery/stuff store - past the check out aisles. It was a busy day as there were many people with grocery cart buggies lined up to check their items. You know how noisy those types of stores can be yet I heard the wailing of a child and turned in the direction of the crying. There - about 25 to 30 feet from I spied what appeared to be a 2.5 yr old blonde boy child sitting in the “child seat” of the grocery cart with a woman standing next to it with her hands on hand holds. She was ignoring him while he cried one continuous long wail. I noticed his eyes were closed and his face was in the rictus of pain. I paused in my tracks for some reason to intently focus on him - and he opened his eyes - stopped crying - and looked directly at me. We locked eyes….and in my mind I “heard”: “Be at peace. This is my karma. This is my fate. This is my position I am supposed to be in right now”…and then he turned his head towards the woman standing there - closed his eyes - and resumed his wailing - while she ignored him.

This happened around 1999 and I can still see his face in my mind today.

The second instance happened in 2009. It too involved a child - a 2 month old baby.

A good friend’s young daughter had a baby boy. We were all gathered in a bedroom sitting on the floor with the baby lying on a blanket between us. This was my first time to see him as I lived a good distance away and had come for a visit. The Mom was concerned about him because he was fussing and fidgeting with regard to eating. Grandmom was observing him and consoling him and they were discussing possible solutions to a problem they had no way of identifying. I focused on him intently as thoughts of him being a special child flitted through my mind. In fact in my mind I was telling him how happy I was to see him reincarnate here. (honestly I have no idea why I thought such thoughts) Suddenly- he turned his dark unfocused eyes towards me - looked into mine - then shifted his eyes downward as if he was trying to see below his belly - then his face grimaced - then he turned his eyes back to me. He "told me" he was constipated. When I voiced this to the GrandMom she remembered an old technique her baby doctor had taught her 27 yrs earlier - and she began a procedure which later showed he was indeed constipated far up his bowel.


After GrandMom finished - the baby boy grinned and tried to show his pleasure by moving his legs and waving his arms. Mom immediately knew her baby boy was fine and GMom smiled. They both turned to me in a bit of astonishment - mostly at the odd idea that I would know what was wrong with a baby and had never been a mother myself. Hah! Mystics to the rescue - eh?

 

[sprinkles]

When people call a phenomenon *mystic* they take it out of the rules of physics and of the known world and treat it as it is something out of this world.
I don't find this to be correct. There is more to life than what each and every one of us thinks and believes. Some grasp more than most, but it doesn't mean they grasp things that are "out of this world". Just phenomenons that are unexplained by science yet, that's all. Important to note - some mystics are full of shit, as well.

I tend to agree.

I still follow the principle that all things are one, regarding this. The One is all that exists so that if there is a thing then it is within the One.

I don't have a problem with mysticism in the sense of adjectives, but there's nothing that is truly separated, and as long as we recognize that there's no such thing as an other worldly phenomenon (since there is only one world - even if there's multiple dimensions for example, the totality of all those dimensions comprises the one) then I don't see a problem with using the term to describe elusive and mysterious things.

 

[ThisIsWhoIAm]

I tend to agree.

I still follow the principle that all things are one, regarding this. The One is all that exists so that if there is a thing then it is within the One.

I don't have a problem with mysticism in the sense of adjectives, but there's nothing that is truly separated, and as long as we recognize that there's no such thing as an other worldly phenomenon (since there is only one world - even if there's multiple dimensions for example, the totality of all those dimensions comprises the one) then I don't see a problem with using the term to describe elusive and mysterious things.

Couldn't agree more

 

[Bikerdelic]

When people call a phenomenon *mystic* they take it out of the rules of physics and of the known world and treat it as it is something out of this world.
I don't find this to be correct. There is more to life than what each and every one of us thinks and believes. Some grasp more than most, but it doesn't mean they grasp things that are "out of this world". Just phenomenons that are unexplained by science yet, that's all. Important to note - some mystics are full of shit, as well.

Firstly calling a phenomenon mystic is incorrect you were trying to mean mystical I gather, the person is the mystic not the experience.
Secondly What rules in physics, don't you follow the twists and turns of quantum physics? if so you should know that nothing is set, so you don't have a parameter to measure anything up to really, as if I had a pound or dollar for every time science had to change a theory to include new sourced data that changes the original theory I would be a rich man.
In some minds, the element of materialist science thinking persists and becomes scientific dogma, as foolish and misguided as any religious dogma. So a true Quantum scientist keeps a healthy open mind, as he isn't always working out the physical material elements of the universe, but what also forms them. So I would do a bit more reading on the subject as a little token advice. The mind is the blue print of the universe, however it isn't a lowly biologist that knows this, its combining all the sciences together produced this development, so the attitude of old world science don't cut it today as science reaches the outer limits of human knowledge and understanding. You may well live long enough to see some of these mysteries revealed by science, but I'd be careful what you wish for, as what you think is correct might not be the case.

 

[sprinkles]

Firstly calling a phenomenon mystic is incorrect you were trying to mean mystical I gather, the person is the mystic not the experience.
Secondly What rules in physics, don't you follow the twists and turns of quantum physics? if so you should know that nothing is set, so you don't have a parameter to measure anything up to really, as if I had a pound or dollar for every time science had to change a theory to include new sourced data that changes the original theory I would be a rich man.
In some minds, the element of materialist science thinking persists and becomes scientific dogma, as foolish and misguided as any religious dogma. So a true Quantum scientist keeps a healthy open mind, as he isn't always working out the physical material elements of the universe, but what also forms them. So I would do a bit more reading on the subject as a little token advice. The mind is the blue print of the universe, however it isn't a lowly biologist that knows this, its combining all the sciences together produced this development, so the attitude of old world science don't cut it today as science reaches the outer limits of human knowledge and understanding. You may well live long enough to see some of these mysteries revealed by science, but I'd be careful what you wish for, as what you think is correct might not be the case.

Quantum physics is a strange animal in that the quantum level is not entirely relevant to macro level physics.

In fact, physics is pretty leveled out down to a rather tiny level. The device you're communicating on right now is a machine, likely mass produced or at least built from parts that are mass produced, which is built upon incredibly solid understandings of physics which are unlikely to ever change significantly in the future. In fact this entire network we're using is based on rather deep and scientific knowledge that is pretty much complete and unchanging.

Also just because people are often mistaken about how a certain thing works, that does not necessarily mean that the thing in question does not in fact work in only one precise way which has yet to be discovered - and actually that is likely how natures of things work because if there were no predictable natural laws then we'd not have science in the first place because it would be in fact impossible to study anything at all, since it would never make sense if your results can change on some mere whim.

Edit:
And to make it more short, what I mean about quantum physics not being relevant to macro level physics is that for example if they're all wrong about the Higgs boson, that won't change anything about what's understood about principles such as conservation of momentum, or electrical resistance, or how to make a battery, or how to send this message to you with digital packets over some wires and/or possibly even air.

Also scientists are becoming better at understanding when a mistake has been made, which is why you're actually seeing these turnovers where they go "well, we used to think this but now it is actually this other thing"

Knowing when they're wrong is actually a big improvement in understanding because being able to know they are wrong means that they actually know about something else now in order to figure out that the thing was wrong. When nothing is ever wrong, then you can start to worry.

Edit edit:
And to be entirely truthful, I don't find quantum physics to be all that deep or interesting. It's just another iteration of depth. It's like what molecular physics probably used to be, and atomic physics. Imagine what some people thought about molecules when they were first realized. I bet some people thought the idea of water being made from hydrogen and oxygen to be pure madness, or even witchcraft if you go back far enough, but nowdays synthesizing materials out of basic molecules is old hat.

 

[ThisIsWhoIAm]

Firstly calling a phenomenon mystic is incorrect you were trying to mean mystical I gather, the person is the mystic not the experience.
Secondly What rules in physics, don't you follow the twists and turns of quantum physics? if so you should know that nothing is set, so you don't have a parameter to measure anything up to really, as if I had a pound or dollar for every time science had to change a theory to include new sourced data that changes the original theory I would be a rich man.
In some minds, the element of materialist science thinking persists and becomes scientific dogma, as foolish and misguided as any religious dogma. So a true Quantum scientist keeps a healthy open mind, as he isn't always working out the physical material elements of the universe, but what also forms them. So I would do a bit more reading on the subject as a little token advice. The mind is the blue print of the universe, however it isn't a lowly biologist that knows this, its combining all the sciences together produced this development, so the attitude of old world science don't cut it today as science reaches the outer limits of human knowledge and understanding. You may well live long enough to see some of these mysteries revealed by science, but I'd be careful what you wish for, as what you think is correct might not be the case.

What do you mean by this, i don't seem to get to the bottom of your reply?