SPIRITUAL OCD, aka: One Way Syndrome, the Petrified Path

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Yes, I did have 3 titles and couldn't decide so I used them all!

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While reading something by a youngish, talented and dedicated medium, I came across a reference to them talking to a friend about aspects of spiritual development. The friend shared that experiences with psilocybin were helping him advance spiritually.

Young medium took umbrage at this, saying that equating drug-induced hallucinatuions with spiritual visions minimized true mystical experience. Then they went on to say that ceremonial drug use amongst native peoples, because it was done in the context of a religious practice, could certainly generate personal growth. But laying up in the bed and doing shrooms is not the same as having a spiritual revelation during a religious ritual.

 

WHY NOT?

Young Medium is OCD and was raised a Christian and went on about the body being "a temple" and the spiritual journey has no "shortcuts." I'm wondering why the native peoples' bodies aren't temples or do they become that when they are zoned out on whatever hallucinogen is native to their ecosystem?

And why aren't they taking a religious shortcut? Because thay aren't a 20-something American kid in La Jolla?

Which brings me to Mary and Martha, as so many things do. Maybe t it wasn't just that Martha had all the serving to do, because she would have had servants. It seems like her real issue was Mary's scandalous behavior, way outside the acceptable lines for a decent Hebrew woman. She was sitting with the men, at the feet of an  unmarried adult man! 

And besides, that Jesus couldn't be some great thing if He didn't correct her and send her to the kitchen! So she confronts Jesus, the honored guest, not Mary. Which is pretty much also a serious cultural faux pas. If she wanted male support she could have asked her brother. Instead:

40 Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.”

41The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. 

That's from Luke 10. Jesus knew her thoughts, of course and all about her. The first thing He says is that she is anxious about many things. 

Young Medium is also anxious about many things. Like defining a true spiritual experience. Like not offending the liberal reader who might think he was criticizing Native Americans. Like maybe thinking he was "doing as much work as possible" every day, as he said at one point, and mushroom boy was getting the same benefit? Like the men working the fields all day getting the same wages as the ones who only worked one hour? Like the prodigal son getting a party and the hard-working, always obedient son didn't?

THERE ARE IMPORTANT CHRISTIAN FAITH ISSUES HERE

• THE IDEA WE CAN DEFINE "TRUE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE" FOR ANYONE ELSE, OR EVEN OURSELVES.
• THE IMPLICATION  THAT SPIRITUAL ADVANCEMENT COMES FROM OUR OWN EFFORTS RATHER THAN OUR SOUL'S DESIRE AND GOD'S ACTION
• THE UNSTATED BUT OVERARCHING IDEA THAT THERE IS ONLY ONE PATH TO GOD

Jesus didn't tell Martha to stop what she was doing and come sit at His feet with Mary. Jesus didn't tell the rich young man to sell all his stuff and give to the poor, not at first. He simply told him to follow  Torah. It was the rich young man who wanted to do more. Jesus didn't tell the Centurian to give up worshipping multiple gods.

I've been posting what I think of as my "spiritual autobiography" on my YT channel, and episode 4 God Speaks; Kyrie Argues describes what defineable experience, exactly?  

• Yes, the speaking was loud and clear as was my response but:
• Not sure I'd call it a "true mystical experience."
• It totally came out of thin air and I did not expect it or do any kind of work or have a conscious thought of such a thing.

When I did start down a path, I ended up on one neither Young Medium nor the Church in various persons recommends. That is: I did my own thing only I think it was God's thing as He called me to it. Did I work hard as I went to Mass daily and did contemplative prayer almost daily? Didn't seem like it. It was kind of like discovering chocolate that had no calories and was the perfect health food. 

I flew so high, so high

I overtook the prey

St. John of the Cross

Have you ever seen video of 2 bald eagles, talons locked, spiraling around each other high in the air? Look here

I am in you, you are in Me is what Jesus said to His Apostles. I feel like God finds us and we latch on to each other in the dark and instead of spiralling down we rise into the Light. And He might find an acid trip or a rulebook, a brush with death or mediumship reading, or the prayer of a Pope to overtake His prey.