My belief is most people would be very surprised just how many people in
their own families and among their other close familiars have had
potentially transformative spiritual experiences. There are a
number of reasons I'm inclined to think this way:
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A
number of surveys over the last couple of decades indicate we have strong
spiritual inclinations in the USA and in fact over nearly all the
world and that this is growing rapidly. So consciously or unconsciously, we are largely
open to such experiences. Not, however, that you have to be
"open" or to have imagined such a possibility for them to
occur. But if one is closed off from them because of attitude
or belief, they are less likely to draw them into their lives
and more likely either to dismiss or mis-interpret them when they do
occur. But no one under any conditions is immune from them!
And in fact Abraham Maslow in his research with "peak
experiences" discovered the more he and his grad students
studied them, talked about them, dwelled on them, the more they
themselves tended to have such experiences. [Suggested
reading: Abraham Maslow,
Dannion Brinkley
and Howard Storm.]
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Through
large numbers of books, CDs, websites, popular TV and radio
programs, conferences and workshops, community gatherings,
membership organizations, we observe the obvious: people are
opening up and sharing their stories. This trend has no
historical precedent. Until very recently, almost no one dared
to talk about their experiences of this nature, at least not in much
of Western society within the last several score years. Now
that science and medicine openly acknowledge and
study near-death and out-of-body experiences, after-death
communications, and the like, this has become an important avenue of
healing and insight for all of us, and this interest is abundantly
evident through many media. [See recommended
booklist.]
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My
own very ordinary, middleclass, American family!! ;-D I just had no inkling until the
past several years this was the case! It really shifts
something in you when you begin to put all these different people's
stories into one context, such as your family. I found it
healing and wholeness-making not only for myself but within my
family itself. As other people come forward with their own
observations along these lines, I hope to see this become a major
topic of discussion. [The
Breadcrumb Trail .. . can give you a feeling for how this
kind of personal discovery can unfold and enrich your life
immeasurably in the process.]
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With just a little earnest searching, my guess is almost everyone will
make a similarly stunning personal discovery within hir
own family. Always bear in mind with any of these, whether your
EEs/EHEs or those of someone else, what makes these events so
valuable is not the stories themselves, but what
happens as a result of
the experiences to those who had them and, not so surprisingly, to those who
experience them secondhand--readers, audience, etc. How does
it in fact change one's life?
And harking
back to literature-class days, this is true for any adventure: how
were the people involved in the fiction and poetry you read changed, or were they?
Whether fictitious or true, what have you read or come across in other
ways -- other people's stories -- that made a difference in your
life? There probably
would not be any literature, any art even, if these did not continually
inspire, impact, stir up powerful feelings, inner changes, new ideas for
those who are later exposed to them.
In the case of these
EEs/EHEs, keep in mind the fact that there is a recognized, even
celebrated profile of aftereffects
-- values and behaviors -- that experiencers naturally tend to manifest
or live out of afterwards. This very characteristic also is
apparent in people who have simply been exposed to others' spiritually
transformative stories. Add to this what Ken Ring noticed in his
classes, that mere exposure to such stories resulted in many
non-experiencers' lives also shifting to mirror more of these so-called
aftereffects. He describes this "contagious" phenomenon
as not unlike a benign virus. The research of
parapsychologist, R. A. McConnell [see Statistics
page for citing the article] certainly validates this 'viral'
effect. He said "71%
of ... respondents .. said that psychic effects observed in themselves
or in persons close to them have contributed significantly to their
belief in ESP." Also,
Abraham Maslow observed that
the more people become immersed in this subject the more they themselves
tend to have such experiences.
Wishing
you fruitful , healing, thrilling
adventures
and discoveries!
Here are a few of my family-related stories:
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