Trauma and mysticism

[ButterflyWoman]

I've been a mystic pretty much all my life. My first big mystical experience happened when I was five (the standard, well-documented kind of "golden-white light that is the Presence of God" thing). I've continued to have mystical and supernatural and metaphysical type experiences ever since, and I still do.

I also had a particularly stressful childhood. Without going into details, my family was highly dysfunctional in myriad ways, and it affected me deeply and profoundly. I spent many years being extremely messed up, to put it mildly.

I've noticed that a lot of people who post here reporting mystical/metaphysical experiences have similarly stressful childhood backgrounds. Have commented on this before, actually.

I have a daughter who is now thirteen, and she is an absolute mini-me. She looks like me, she thinks like me, she's prone to stress the same way I am, her sense of humour is exactly like mine, all of it. She is a kind of manifestation of a wish (I wanted to get an idea how I might have turned out if I had not had complete f**kwits for parents). When she was young, she had a number of experiences that looked very like clairvoyance to me, and she had dreams that struck me as mystical, but as she's gotten older, she's become less and less mystical. She told me the other day she's an agnostic, in the sense that the Divine cannot be known by conventional means (though she's open to the idea that people can experience the Divine in subjective ways). She also has not, apparently, started to have precognitive dreams, which is something that happens commonly in my family when you hit puberty. She has also had a reasonably stable upbringing by parents who are imperfect but not complete f**kwits. She is prone to stress, but she doesn't have a stress disorder (which is something with which I still struggle; my limbic system is pretty fragile). She also seems to have the capacity for the mystical, but little to no experience of it (nor does she seek that, though one day she might).

I have other observations that are similar (i.e., people with abusive or otherwise messed up childhoods being more likely to develop mystical abilities), but I won't go into all of them. What I'm thinking, and possibly seeing, is that trauma is, among other things, a facilitator of mysticism. I'm not sure that all mystics come from a traumatic background (I don't have any reason to think that's true, and if we look at the stories of the Buddha, he was raised a pampered prince!), but it seems that for some, trauma causes us to retreat into ourselves in ways that open us up to the mystical, and, for some of us, the Divine. I am positive that trauma does not always lead to mysticism or divine experience (more often, it seems to lead to personal dysfunction, addiction, criminal activities, and other such self-destructive habits), but based on my very small sample and observations I've made of the mystically-inclined, I think it can be said that trauma can and does lead us to mystical experience, or, at least, it opens us up to it.

At the moment I'm just mulling this over, and I'm not proclaiming any special knowledge or epiphanies or anything. :) I'm just observing this, and I'm wondering if someone might have some input or thoughts on the matter. Could make an interesting discussion. ;)

[Sinera]

The term "dark night of the soul" comes to my mind. It is an extreme depressive state, normally or often caused or preceded by a traumatic event.

I remember having read E. Tolle also had this phase and became a mystic and spiritual teacher only after he 'survived' it.

Here's one of his descriptions:

https://www.eckharttolle.com/newsletter/october-2011

I remember as a bullied child (I was constantly harassed in school) I was once walking through a weather storm, not caring too much for getting soaked wet. I was desperate and asking God to take me out of this life with a thunderbolt from above. Or actually I was asking the weather god "Petrus" for it.
;)

If I really wanted to die I cannot tell anymore but I was pretty destroyed back then and life had no meaning. I remember that after being home and crying I felt better somehow. Something came to me that had made me stronger. That does not mean that the bullying stopped because I still was not out of school, but I had some strength to endure it and carry on and to kind of 'sit it out' with patience. I knew school would end one day. And then it got better. Thank goodness my parents or family never were f ... wits.
:wink:

I did not turn into a perfect mystic back then, but I knew I had felt sth more out-of-this-world in me. I was metaphysically inclined anyway since childhood. Always talking to the invisible help from elsewhere rather than only to myself.

[ButterflyWoman]

Oh, I've done the dark night of the soul (and it lasted for years). I believe it was a term first used by Juan de la Cruz, but I oculd be wrong on that one. He certainly did use it in his classic mystical writings, even if he didn't coin the phrase (and he would have coined it in Spanish, anyway).

[Sinera]

Oh, I've done the dark night of the soul (and it lasted for years). I believe it was a term first used by Juan de la Cruz, but I oculd be wrong on that one. He certainly did use it in his classic mystical writings, even if he didn't coin the phrase (and he would have coined it in Spanish, anyway).
La noche oscura del alma. :cool:

(*calling CFT for any corrections please*)

[Sinera]

ah, found it...

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noche_oscura_del_alma

:cool:8)

[ButterflyWoman]

I guess what I think I'm seeing is that having a crappy childhood can make you a mystic. But I'm not sure that's the case. It's certainly not always the case (usually, it just messes you up for life). I have never seen much purpose for the suffering I endured from before I was born (please, no dogma about "choosing it before I was born", I've been down that road and found it to be unsatisying and mostly irrelevant, though I know it works for some people, as dogma generally does), and I have resented it most of my life. I've come to peace with it now, for the most part, because it just was what it was and it's part of the back story for this "me" creation, and that's fine. It's just lately I'm seeing that maybe there was something more to it (though I'm not at all convinced that there's any great "plan" or "scheme" or anything, and I most definitely do not ascribe to the idea of predestination).

I dunno. Maybe it's just that a lot of people have a dysfunctional childhood, and therefore lots of people here do. I might be grasping at straws to try to find some meaning in that which is meaningless.

[IA56]

I guess what I think I'm seeing is that having a crappy childhood can make you a mystic. But I'm not sure that's the case. It's certainly not always the case (usually, it just messes you up for life). I have never seen much purpose for the suffering I endured from before I was born (please, no dogma about "choosing it before I was born", I've been down that road and found it to be unsatisying and mostly irrelevant, though I know it works for some people, as dogma generally does), and I have resented it most of my life. I've come to peace with it now, for the most part, because it just was what it was and it's part of the back story for this "me" creation, and that's fine. It's just lately I'm seeing that maybe there was something more to it (though I'm not at all convinced that there's any great "plan" or "scheme" or anything, and I most definitely do not ascribe to the idea of predestination).

I dunno. Maybe it's just that a lot of people have a dysfunctional childhood, and therefore lots of people here do. I might be grasping at straws to try to find some meaning in that which is meaningless.

Nothing is meaningless, even that I have not words to tell you in the writing moment, but I know in time I will have.
I am so sad about your condecendent tone, maybe you just need to hear you are loved as you are, and perfekt created, no need to try to collect points in wrong way.

Love
ia

[Dreamweaver]

I was raised badly too. And I don't know if I could be legitimately identified as a mystic. But - at this point in my life I think that my relationship with Spirit has been initiated by a deep abiding innocent desire for real love and what is right and good. And -that- was and is deeply informed by the felt absence of same. And - at this point in my life I label the source of that desire as Soul experience. I feel and intuit that if our Soul knows better then we are refined by suffering. If a Soul does not know better - it is not experienced enough yet.

[buzzcock]

Personally the people I've known with a psychic side who had bad childhoods, it has not helped them, but left them lost and open to neg influence, and, in my opinion held back their "life development" not quickened it. I don't believe horrible things are a boon to becoming spiritual. I think the perfect conditions for becoming spiritual are a balance of challenge/hardship and basic safety. I think too little hardship and people grow arrogant and self satisfied, too much and people break and become lost in despair. To grow people need the perfect balance. IMO.

[ButterflyWoman]

I have had an epiphany about this. Essentially, nothing has meaning or purpose unless we give it meaning and purpose, and then it does. If I want to believe that my crappy childhood somehow enhanced something, well, I can (I don't, but I can if I want to), and then, it will be exactly that. Essentially, the only meaning anything has is that which we give it. This may sound extremely bleak, but I'm finding it to be powerfully liberating, and the realisation is causing a domino effect with some other very deeply held attachments that clearly needed to go.

I've kind of known this about belief/perception for a long time, but now I'm really experiencing it, and while once it would have freaked me out, now I'm just enjoying observing my reality dissolve in interesting ways.

I don't know if anyone but a handful of people will have any clue what I'm talking about, but that's okay. I just needed to push through this, through that last vestige of "But there MUST be meaning!" No, there doesn't have to be meaning. Holding to meaning, clinging to the belief that everything has to have some sort of purpose is potentially very limiting.

[Dreamweaver]

"Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose."

Jean-Paul Sartre


Ahhhh - but what of the dreams that come true, the visitations from beings who know me better than I, guides who ask me what I want to know, the experience of the energy of Spirit, the existence of synchronicities and symbols pointing to something much bigger and greater than me?

[Dreamweaver]

I have often yelled at God - something to the effect of "what in the hell do you think you're doing? I have gotten the sense that, after many years, that I am now qualified to do something real - something very meaningful to me - and that is to transmute and requalify. Because I have been wounded just right to have been inspired and spurred on - energized by injustice.

Maybe it is up to us to determine the meaning and to do with it what we will.

[Dreamweaver]

So - BW, what are you doing?

[ButterflyWoman]

Ahhhh - but what of the dreams that come true, the visitations from beings who know me better than I, guides who ask me what I want to know, the experience of the energy of Spirit, the existence of synchronicities and symbols pointing to something much bigger and greater than me?
There is no conflict. The meaning of those experiences is still whatever you give it. No more, no less. If you find meaning in it, then it's meaningful. If you don't assign meaning, then it isn't. It's as simple as that.


Maybe it is up to us to determine the meaning and to do with it what we will.
Exactly. That's exactly it.


So - BW, what are you doing?
Adding back progams on my computer after reinstalling my operating system, having gotten malware on it. Quite tedious, I must say. And meaningless. ;)

What are you doing?

[Dreamweaver]

Well today, in the immediate future I will love and take care of my husband and child. I will love and take care of myself too. Upcoming, I will facilitate some therapeutic recovery groups and see some people in 1x1 therapy. I might get to prevent someone from taking their own life or giving up on their hopes and dreams, or be present with someone in their grief. It'll be meaningful.

Here's to living a meaningful life :)

[ButterflyWoman]

Here's to living a meaningful life :)
Indeed. I'm starting to see that by being aware of the inherent meaningless in everything (i.e., there is no intrinsic value or correctness or meaning in anything; everything is just zeroes and ones, so to speak), then when you do choose to assign meaning to something, it makes it that much better. And the stuf you choose to allow to remain meaningless is a lot less taxing. Not sure I'm articulating that well. It's one of those weird, esoteric things that I can see/experience very clearly but which is very difficult to put into terms that make any sense unless it's already been experienced (like so many things, really). :)

[Dreamweaver]

So here are some deep existential thoughts from some of my favorite psychologists and philosophers... Victor Frankle notably survived the Holocaust and wrote Man's Search for Meaning. Enjoy ;)



http://www.existential-therapy.com/existential_quotes.html

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2782.Viktor_E_Frankl

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/313093.Rollo_May

[ButterflyWoman]

Wow, good stuff.

I used to take great umbrage with my husband (this was decades ago, mind you) because he was so post-modern and so existentialist. Used to frustrate me to no end, beause I clung to my experience of "truth" and "value" and "morality" and all that sort of stuff. He hasn't pointed this out to me, of course, but it's kind of funny that my own experience of reality has gone past and through all of that and right into existentialism. I certainly never intended or planned it this way. It's just that as the layers fall apart, well, they fall apart... Ah, the bottomless rabbit hole....

:)

[Dreamweaver]

"It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."

Lewis Carroll,♥Alice in Wonderland (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, #1) ;)

[CFTraveler]

Wow, good stuff.

I used to take great umbrage with my husband (this was decades ago, mind you) because he was so post-modern and so existentialist. Used to frustrate me to no end, beause I clung to my experience of "truth" and "value" and "morality" and all that sort of stuff. He hasn't pointed this out to me, of course, but it's kind of funny that my own experience of reality has gone past and through all of that and right into existentialism. I certainly never intended or planned it this way. It's just that as the layers fall apart, well, they fall apart... Ah, the bottomless rabbit hole....

:) I wonder if that's a product of age and experience- although I think I always tended to think that way, more or less.

[ButterflyWoman]

I wonder if that's a product of age and experience- although I think I always tended to think that way, more or less.
I have traditionally had big, big issus with things like safety, being safe, secure, etc. Structuring my reality so that there were all these rules and consistent patterns (even if they were patterns I didn't like) was weirdly comforting.

I'm sure it's partly age, and a bit experience. Mostly, I'm kinda too tired to spend a lot of energy maintaining patterns and structures in my reality if I don't need them or, more to the point, don't want them. There are aspects of previous created realities that I kind of miss, but maintaining them is too energetically expensive, so I just let it go.

[ButterflyWoman]

I debated whether or not to post this here. This appeared on FB, admittedly from a friend who knows me well, but still, it was unexpected. It resonated with me immediately (as my friend knew it would :heart:), and then I just "sat on it" for a while to consider it. It was clear from the start but became more and more clear that it was a message to me, a sign, if you will. A sort of acknowledgement to me from the Universe that I'd finished something. Sort of like a certificiate that you might earn at the end of a course of study, I guess. It felt like that, and it still does, even more so now, and so I decided to share it.

827

[Seeuzin]

BW:

My heart pulses so much with energy, reading what you have wrote <3

无为

and everything you write, is

* * * * *


无为 is an important concept of Taoism (Daoism,) that involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Another perspective
to this is that "Wu Wei" means natural action - as planets revolve around the sun, they 'do' this revolving, but without
'doing' it; or as trees grow, they 'do', but without 'doing'. Thus knowing when (and how) to act is not knowledge in the
sense that one would think 'now' is the right time to do 'this', but rather just doing it, doing the natural thing.

[Dreamweaver]

Perfect - I want to steal that quote.

[Antares]

(i.e., people with abusive or otherwise messed up childhoods being more likely to develop mystical abilities), but I won't go into all of them. What I'm thinking, and possibly seeing, is that trauma is, among other things, a facilitator of mysticism. I'm not sure that all mystics come from a traumatic background (I don't have any reason to think that's true, and if we look at the stories of the Buddha, he was raised a pampered prince!), but it seems that for some, trauma causes us to retreat into ourselves in ways that open us up to the mystical, and, for some of us, the Divine. I am positive that trauma does not always lead to mysticism or divine experience (more often, it seems to lead to personal dysfunction, addiction, criminal activities, and other such self-destructive habits), but based on my very small sample and observations I've made of the mystically-inclined, I think it can be said that trauma can and does lead us to mystical experience, or, at least, it opens us up to it.

At the moment I'm just mulling this over, and I'm not proclaiming any special knowledge or epiphanies or anything. :) I'm just observing this, and I'm wondering if someone might have some input or thoughts on the matter. Could make an interesting discussion. ;)
My childhood and relationships did, as well. The opposite to being oriented to the world is turn around to yourself. Then miracles can happen if mind is not "like the others".