I only read about 3/4 of this thread, just a heads up.

In any case, while I do think that the majority of the Christian religion has a lot of factual as well as philosophical inaccuracies, I do believe in the sensation that people describe as "The Feeling of the Holy Spirit". I do not think it is necessarily a god or real being of any sort, but I have had that feeling, and it seems almost impossible that religious people are describing anything BUT that feeling when they refer to the feeling of the holy spirit, or whatever deity they worship.


It's always a bit difficult to describe how emotions feel, but I'll give it a shot. I always think that it feels a whole lot like INTENSE love/connection. It feels like it's the very meaning of being alive. You seem to have some kind of connection with something, sort of like how it feels when you listen to music that you are really attached to, except it's that feeling amplified tremendously (Really, I feel that music gives me that feeling whenever I can connect with it, it's just a hint of the feeling though). You have probably felt it already in inextreme amounts, like if you've ever had any experience with love, or if you've ever enjoyed music, I think you have felt it, just slightly though. You can go through life having felt that several times, and never realizing how powerful and beautiful of a feeling it can really be, which I think is what many people do. When the feeling is extremely strong, which is probably what christians may be referring to, it feels to me almost like my heart/"spirit" is having an orgasm.

Really, I think it's the same sensation of being alive, or having love and connection, and it's only described as the feeling of the holy spirit when the feeling is very intense. To me, it's the same thing though.


I don't know what your opinion is on the usage of psychedelics, but I'll say that my first experience of feeling this feeling intensely, and making the connection between it and what people describe as god/spirituality, was when I first used psilocybe mushrooms. I have felt it almost as intensely as love for a girl, but it didn't seem reasonable to make the connection to the feeling god or a spiritual being at the time, because I merely understood it as love, and didn't realise that it can be present outside of romance. From the 3 times i've used shrooms, I have felt this feeling throughout almost the entire experience. I don't know if others do feel the feeling when they use shrooms, but I assume I'm not the first, as psilocybes have been used as entheogens for thousands of years, so that must mean that at least some feel the same feeling under their influence.

But yeah. Just for clarification, I am an agnostic and do not have a drug habit of any sort, just use psychedelics on rare occasions, because I enjoy exploring my mind. Now I can't say for sure this is what christians mean when they say that they felt the holy spirit, but when I first felt it on mushrooms I instantly made the connection between that feeling and some kind of god or spirit. I don't necessarily believe in god or spirits, but I do believe the spiritual sensation is what I felt, and that it is indeed powerful. Whether or not the presence of the spiritual feeling actually means that a god or a spirit really actually exist is beyond me, however. It's a feeling, and it feels that way, but that doesn't rationally prove the physical existence of such a being in my eyes, it only proves the existence of the sensation of such a being.