Encounters with God - are they real?

When I was 13, I went to Ely cathedral to get the Holy Spirit inserted into me by the bishop. 

This, I was told, was what would happen at my confirmation. I might experience something. This sounded reasonable, as God coming to live in me, one might expect, could cause a bit of a tremor at least. But, disappointingly, I felt nothing apart from mild pleasure about being the centre of attention in my family, and being given a box set of 'The Messiah' on LPs. Apparently this was OK too, and I could trust that God had fulfilled the contract set up by the Church of England.

Forward to my late teens, and I was a good Christian girl, going to church and youth group regularly, trying to read the Bible and pray, and definitely planning to 'keep myself pure' until I married. My uncle had given me a postcard with this instruction captioning a white rose, which I had pinned on my mirror to remind me. 

But I was still missing any fuzzy frisson of feelings, a tangible sense of God with me, or in me. I even tried going to the front at a big tent rally, hoping that 'giving my life to Jesus' again might help. But still nothing, except that I noticed that the boy I fancied had noticed me in my red dungarees. That gave me a frisson.

There was something of a quiet rebel in me, and I bravely chose to leave my parents' CofE church to cross the road to the Chapel, where there were more rousing songs and a better selection of boys to fancy. And a couple of years later, I rebelled further by heading off to the city centre Evangelical church, with serious biblical lectures. Definitely no God frissons here, but a group of nice, welcoming young people, and the regulation youth group talks on 'how to not have sex'. (They weren't called that, but that was the clear message).

As a student at Oxford University, my Christian horizons were broadened again. I started by attending the serious biblical church, but my roommate, Kate, talked about the Holy Spirit in a way I'd never heard before, and had a group of friends who expected miracles. This was incredibly alluring, and I was delighted to get caught up in this heady wave of meetings, prayer sessions, singing and teaching about the Holy Spirit, covering topics like healing, prophecy, praying in tongues and spiritual warfare. It was new and exciting for me, and I felt at last I'd come somewhere where I could experience God. We often had séance-like meetings, waiting quietly or with some worship music playing, while we opened ourselves to receive from God. We expected to get words or pictures in our minds, and so we did. I turned out to be very good at pictures. Sometimes I felt like I was making it up, but when I shared them with the group, my heart pounding, and gave an interpretation, explaining what it meant within the strict parameters I'd been taught, I received affirmation and I was told that God was speaking. So this is what I believed. Sometimes these messages were remarkably specific and accurate, but mostly metaphorical in nature. For example, I had a vivid picture in my mind one time of a seashore where we were all paddling, and I interpreted it as God saying that we could come in deeper and he would take care of us. I remember this one, as it really impressed a guy who I liked a lot, and we dated for a few months, trying very hard not to have sex and almost succeeding (depending on how you define sex).

We often experienced physical sensations during these prayer sessions, such as hyperventilation, flushed or shiny skin, shaking hands, butterflies in the stomach, even jerking muscles and falling over. All potentially caused by intense anticipation and a sympathetic nervous system activation, but interpreted as signs of the Holy Spirit.

There was another occasion, at a college for trainee vicars, when I was being prayed for and I felt quite high, eyes closed, breath speeding up, gazing in my mind at Jesus who I adored. I recognise the feeling now, retrospectively. I've felt the same when having sex after a cannabis brownie. Floating, spinning, ecstasy. I wanted more - more - more - higher - higher ... I caught myself and felt embarrassed, as I realised that my panting and begging for more did probably sound rather sexual! Sadly, I didn't catch myself a vicar, though one of my friends did.

I now interpret these experiences as a mix of powerful social pressure, group conformity, emotion contagion, maybe even group hysteria. Clearly we were sublimating our sexual desires, and singing worship songs in the 'Jesus is my boyfriend' genre. For example, 

He is jealous for me,

loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,

bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.

When all of a sudden, I am unaware

of these afflictions eclipsed by glory.

I realize just how beautiful You are

and how great Your affections are for me.

Oh, how He loves us so; oh, how He loves us.

how He loves us so;

Oh, how He loves us so.  Oh, how he loves us;

how He loves us so.

REFRAIN:

Yeah, He loves us; whoa, how He loves us. (Repeat 4 times)

We are His portion and He is our prize,

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes.

If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking;

So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest.

I don’t have time to maintain these regrets

When I think about the way that He loves us:

As a Psychologist, I now wonder if this went beyond sublimation, in which unacceptable desires are converted into something else, such as creativity. These experiences had something more directly sexual about them. We were directing our repressed sexual energy towards Jesus, and having some lovely feelings as we worshipped. 

And so I went on, into my adult life. I married a man who believed the same stuff as me, and we belonged to a church that was open to the Holy Spirit, 'prayer ministry' and miracles, although mostly the things that actually happened seemed to be 'inner healing': people experiencing emotional release, crying or laughing, and having new insights into problems from their past. I also felt I'd received significant emotional healing as I dealt with my father's inability to express affection, and found in God the loving father I'd always wanted. After all, he gave his son for me. My marriage was often devastatingly lonely, and sex was frustrating, but I found solace in my commitment to God, and support from my Christian friends. (I'll come back to thoughts about sex in a future blog, maybe)

I don't dispute that people experienced significant psychological release during these times of prayer ministry. It can be highly cathartic to be able to cry or laugh uncontrolledly in a group of accepting people. Sometimes I'd spend some time on the floor, 'under the power of the Holy Spirit', and it was a state of deep meditation, trance-like, in which my feelings about past events were released and I found new insights about who I was. I felt myself valuable and chosen, with a unique place in the universe, a sense of being united with all that is important (which I called 'God'). I got up refreshed, as after a deep nap or a day at the spa, but with a glow of being connected into Love. I now know that people describe very similar experiences after taking some psychedelic drugs, particularly with guidance and in a supportive context. It seems like a short cut to growth and wholeness, like a whole course of therapy. Was this God? I don't believe the experience proves anything. It is clearly something our brains are wired to do, and can be triggered by chemical or electrical stimulation of particular regions. I favour the interpretation that our amazing brains were able to heal themselves, given the right circumstances: a supportive group, a sense of safety, and the contextual set-up of music, expectancy and time set aside to let it happen.

We valued 'hearing God's voice', and the ritual, loud music followed by silence and expectant waiting, seemed to be perfect to elicit people hearing or seeing things. Every Sunday, after 30 minutes of singing ecstatic worship songs to loud rock music, the room would fall silent and our pastor would declare 'this is the Holy Spirit'. And I would think, 'No it's not. I've felt exactly the same awed silence after the end of a Mahler symphony, when the conductor still has his baton raised and everyone holds their breath before bursting into applause.'

The waiting, and expectation of 'hearing from God', I now believe to be actually dangerous for people who may have psychotic tendencies. Even mindfulness meditation can lead to some unexpected and frightening mental experiences.We were taught to expect visions, hunches, sensations in our body, even audible voices - all the possible modalities of hallucination. Hearing voices is not necessarily a sign of mental illness, but it can be. There was a young mother in our church who started experiencing God tapping her on the shoulder in her kitchen, and hearing him whispering in her ear. She was brought to the front to give her 'testimony' and we were all delighted, until we heard the next week that she'd had a serious breakdown and was in hospital with her newborn baby, with post-partum psychosis. 

My sister-in-law asked me recently 'What about your experiences of God?' I realised, in that instant, that I had reinterpreted all these experiences retrospectively. It's like watching the Matrix, when you suddenly understand another level of explanation, and everything going before becomes part of this new story. My new story is one of freedom and connection, of enjoying being who I am, of finding meaning in a simple, peasant life: growing, building, tending.

Now I wonder how I stayed within the Christian belief system for so long. When we commit ourselves to a way of life or a course of action, we have to believe we have chosen correctly, especially if there is a cost to it. There is a cost to being a Christian, as it is counter-cultural. If you choose to live a celibate life, you are fighting some strong biological and psychological urges as well as cultural norms. You have to believe it's worth it. There is also a sunk costs heuristic at work: you've given so much to this cause already, you have to keep going. Maybe the things that don't make sense now will make more sense if you read the Bible more, pray  more, etc etc. After all, these intelligent, mature people seem to have it all sorted, and they are telling me to keep going. That was my thinking for 40 years.

Some of my most profound encounters with God were times spent alone in nature. As I teenager I would cycle into the countryside and sit in a field, and throughout my life I have adopted quiet places outdoors, where I could go and be. I have expressed profound emotion and confusing thoughts, and found peace in the contemplation of the natural world: the wide skies of East Anglia or the rolling hills of Hampshire. When I was living within the God story, I interpreted these moments as God's gift to me - the beauty of the sunsets or the waving wildflowers were a sign of God's love and presence. It is a self-perpetuating phenomenon: I go to a place feeling stressed or anxious, I find peace, I attribute it to God. In this way, any good experience could be received as an experience of God. But none of these things were actually personal. I now see it as rather egocentric. Who am I to think that the sun was setting or the hills rolling for my benefit, or that it had any meaning as a message to me? 

Now I find peace in the meadows and orchards of our home in France, and the peace is just as enduring, all-encompassing, healing and restoring, without me needing to think about God.  I can work in the vegetable garden or chopping wood all day without needing to entertain my mind with radio, music or even conversation. I can just be. I have learnt, finally, that the connection with nature is what nourishes me. 

The view from my bedroom window at sunrise