Re: knowledge & proof

Randy Isaac asks:

"...How did you distinguish between the focus of your interaction as being with God and not with a projection of yourself or other psychological influence?....?

Good question. I've been testing myself on this ever since. The reality is that the interaction was strictly personal and private, unshareable; and not many scientist types are likely to be satisfied with any answer I give. You had to be there. And if you had been, the answer would have been eminently clear. In that respect it would be a lot like my interaction with my mother as an infant: That's also unshareable (and would be even if I could remember it). Interactions of persons while they are going on are quite convincing to the persons involved, and the idea that there should be any need to prove they are going on seems sort of ridiculous.

Despite the fundamentally unshareable nature of the interaction, I can nevertheless mention some aspects of it that might persuade the gullible that it was not merely an artifact of my own psyche.

The time duration is significant. I have interacted with God over long periods, but the redefining interactions were confined largely to a 20-month period. The interactions over the 20-month period were fundamentally unlike any before or since. They were also very pleasurable. If they originated solely in my own psyche, I should think that I would be able to initiate them at will, having had 20 months of practice. Because they were pleasurable, I would probably do so if I could; but this particular kind of interaction seemed to have had a fixed purpose, and once that purpose was fulfilled, it ceased. Although I participated intimately, I did not control the interactions.

Schizophrenics who hallucinate cannot control their hallucinations, yet these presumably originate in their own psyches. So how do I know I was not suffering hallucinations? Hallucinations that come at widely spaced intervals may not be terribly detrimental to a person's ability to function in life, but persistent hallucinations of the sort associated with mental illness are incapacitating. The sufferer's ability to carry out normal functions of life and work diminishes or disappears. I've read a lot about mental illness because I have a close relative by marriage that suffers from it, but I've never heard of anyone's enjoying persistent hallucinations. The sufferers suffer terribly from them.

My interactions with God lasted usually for at least an hour and often for several hours daily over the 20-month period. Hence, if they were hallucinations, they were persistent. I suffered no "other" symptoms of mental illness, nor was my capacity to function in life in any way impaired, nor did I in any way *suffer* from these "hallucinations."

Furthermore, hallucinations of the mentally ill always involve one of the five senses, commonly hearing. Schizophrenics commonly hear voices of persons who are not in the vicinity. Usually the voices speak of evil things and often try to get the person to hurt himself. My interaction with God at that time involved none of the five senses explicitly but was purely spiritual.

(I conclude from the interactions that humans have the ability to have unmediated perceptions of spirits.)

I conclude from evidences of this sort that I was not hallucinating.

The interactions, while pleasurable, were also very intense.

You ask whether this could have been from "a projection of yourself or other psychological influence." At the time I was living in a small farming community in Idaho with my parents. There were no psychological influences from external sources that were in any respect unusual. I had just completed a 42-day fast (water only) and strongly desired a closer relationship with God; so psychologically I was attuned to such a relationship. But I'd been intensely seeking such a relationship for almost two years prior to this time without much satisfaction. The fasting was sort of a desperate, last-ditch attempt. Did the fasting work? Not well enough. But afterwards God came anyway, and in a way I could never have anticipated or imagined. The completely unexpected nature of the interaction is also consistent with it's coming from outside my psyche.

Could I have somehow been "projecting" this God? It would be nice to know how to do such a thing, because, as I said, the interaction was pleasurable. If somehow I'd learned how to project him and the pleasure that went with him unconsciously, why would it have started suddenly, lasted 20 months, and then tapered to zero rather rapidly, never to be repeated? Frankly I don't have the slightest idea how someone might "project" a person in such a way that he takes on independent reality and then interacts intimately and intensely with the person doing the projecting. Is this possible? Has it happened? There are children who interact with imaginary playmates over extended periods. But these are fantasy relationships, and I'm not aware that any such fantasy relationship ever achieves a high level of interactive intensity. I don't consider myself at all fantasy-prone. I haven't always had a strong inclination towards science, but when I got into it, I was moderately successful.

After contemplating this interaction with God for more than 45 years I've concluded that, if it had not really been an interaction with God, the only other plausible explanation would be hallucination. But I've never had a hallucination before or since, and for reasons given above, the experience does not fit with everything else we know about hallucinations. Actually, as the one who had the experience, I'm fully confident it was not hallucination. But it doesn't hurt to go over the arguments.

There are further reasons for my confidence that can be put into words but that I don't think would be prudent to disclose at this time. I believe I'll do so eventually. But it's clear that, whenever I talk about this, I'm trying to share something that's fundamentally unshareable. Sometimes this seems foolish, other times necessary. The apostle Paul did similar sharing, so at least there's a respectable precedent.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Randy Isaac<mailto:rmisaac@bellatlantic.net>
  To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 5:51 AM
  Subject: Re: knowledge & proof

  Don, you wrote: "Through interaction God redefined me in a manner somewhat similar to the way in which my parents defined me originally. All my personal assurances about personal existence have their roots in these interactions."

  How did you distinguish between the focus of your interaction as being with God and not with a projection of yourself or other psychological influence?

  I'm leading a discussion series in our church on Armand Nicholi's pbs series "The Question of God" and it seems that the CS Lewis vs. Freud debate comes down to exactly that question. Is our experience of God really with a supernatural Creator or is it, as Freud insisted, a product of our subconscious desires? Our audience seems to leave the meetings convinced of the position with which they arrived. No one is being persuaded to change their mind.

  Randy
Received on Sat Nov 6 05:28:56 2004