Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Learning to Trust Your Experiences

Learning to Trust Your Experiences

Last updated on: April 11, 2019 at 3:00 am by John Beckett

Learning to Trust Your Experiences 2019-04-08T20:17:55-06:00 John Beckett

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Last week I posted Believe Your Experiences – Wisdom From The Shredded Veil. It discussed the importance of sharing our stories of mystical and Otherworldly experiences. Here are two key quotes:

Our mainstream society tells us – constantly – that people who see and hear things that others don’t are mentally ill. Or they’re under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Or they’re lying “to get attention.”

and

Hearing other people’s stories helps normalize them. It reminds us that we’re not the only ones who experience these things. Knowing we’re not alone helps us resist the gaslighting.

A few people pushed back. They were polite and respectful, but they wanted everyone to know that your senses will deceive you, and sometimes hallucinations do happen. Those people were right. We can’t simply take everything at face value.

At the same time, it’s just as wrong to dismiss everything that doesn’t have a so-called rational explanation as delusion.

You can choose to remain agnostic. I could have said “I saw what looked like a green glowing bird, but I don’t know what it really was.” That would be true statement, but it would be a grossly inadequate response to what was a powerful first-hand experience.

Learning to trust your mystical experiences is hard. It’s hard to overcome our mainstream society’s insistence that they can’t be real. For those of us who believe (or at least, strongly suspect) that there’s more to the universe than what can be measured and catalogued, it’s impossible to dismiss them as delusions.

But we can figure it out.

Know thyself

There’s a reason the training programs of most of the traditional occult societies spent so much time on introspection and personal development. If you’re going to work on Big Things, you’ve got to know what your skills are and where your passions lie.

Just as importantly, you’ve got to know yourself well enough to realize when a thought is yours and when it isn’t. Is that a God speaking to you, or is it your own wishful thinking? Is that a demon or your own fears?

When we’re dealing with the unknown, we usually begin by eliminating all the things it can’t be. If you know yourself well enough to eliminate self-delusion as a cause (and to recognize it when it is the cause) you’ll be able to do a much better job of identifying the true cause.

Separate the experience from the interpretation

You see what you see, hear what you hear, and feel what you feel. Your experiences are real, and no one has the right to tell you otherwise.

But experiences are pure data – they are sensory information without context. In order to figure out what they mean, we have to interpret them. That means putting them into the context of your beliefs about the world and what is and isn’t possible. It means comparing them to past experiences where the meaning is clear and seeing how well they fit. And it means comparing them to the reports of others, particularly other people who share your ideas about the way the world works.

If I say “I saw a ghost” I’m engaging in interpretation. If I say “I saw a translucent human-shaped figure moving down the hall at midnight” I’m reporting the facts of the experience. Now, I may very well later decide that yes, what I saw was a ghost. But interpretations need to wait till we’ve had time to consider them. In the moment, simply focus on the experience.

Look for ordinary causes

One of the best ways to learn to trust your experiences is look for ordinary, garden variety, this-world causes. Track down the source of that strange light. Listen closely to that strange music – if it’s a modern tune, it’s almost certainly not fairies. Look for ways light can be reflected, refracted, and dispersed into colors by prism-like things.

If you find an ordinary cause, great – now you know. The goal in discernment and interpretation is always to find the truth, not to confirm what we want to be true.

But if have an experience that fits an Otherworldly or magical matter and you eliminate every ordinary explanation, all you’re left with are extraordinary explanations. After I saw the green glowing bird in 2016, a (rather polite) atheist posted a long list of rational explanations for what I saw. I refuted all of them – at least to my satisfaction.

Because I didn’t jump to conclusions, I’m much more confident that the conclusion I reached is the correct one.

Spirits will lie

You can be sure of what you saw and heard. You can be confident it has an Otherworldly source. And it still may not be good and helpful.

The Gods are always virtuous and the Fair Folk either cannot or will not lie. But other spirits will lie. They will lie to get you to give them things you have no reason to give. They’ll lie so they can laugh as they watch you make a fool of yourself.

And while the Fair Folk don’t like, they’re well known for telling only the part of the truth that serves their purposes.

Even if a spirit tells you something, you still have to figure out what it means.

And if it’s true.

Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they’re smart

I’ve heard Phaedra Bonewits say this many times – not sure if the quote originates with her or with Isaac. But in any case, it’s true.

Contact your great grandmother? Wonderful! Tell her how much you appreciate her living long enough to have children and raise them, because if she hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here. Develop a deep relationship with her. Ask her about how she lived.

Need advice on which job you should take? What makes you think she’s going to know? The dead know what they knew in life. If they’re active in this world they may see something we can’t – or they may not.

We honor our beloved dead because of who they are, not because they’re fountains of wisdom. Because most of them aren’t.

Build a strong foundation of values and virtues

If a God tells me to fly airplanes into buildings, I’m going to conclude that either this isn’t really a God, or it’s a God I don’t want to deal with anymore.

Is what you’re hearing in alignment with your values and virtues? Do you know what your values and virtues are? If not, start working through them.

“I was just following orders” is never an acceptable excuse for doing evil.

Repetition matters

Last month I wrote about how repetition matters in magic – the more you practice, the better you get. It’s true in discernment too. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

I’ve been worshipping and working with Cernunnos for close to 15 years. I recognize His voice the same way I recognize the voice of a close friend from across a crowded hotel lobby. I recognize the voice of the Morrigan. I still look for confirmation if one of Them asks me to do something out of the ordinary (particularly if They ask me to deliver a message to someone) but the divination always confirms what I heard – whether I pull cards or if I get someone to do it for me.

I recognize Brighid’s voice, but not so clearly. Lugh is even less certain. And deities with whom I have only a passing acquaintance? I have to go through the full discernment process.

But the more you evaluate your magical and spiritual experiences, the better you get at doing it, and the more confidence you can have in your interpretations.

You can have mental health problems and also have legitimate spiritual experiences

Hallucinations – where your brain tells you you’re seeing or hearing something you flat-out aren’t – happen. They don’t happen often, but they do happen. I can’t tell you how to distinguish hallucination from a mystical experience – I don’t know. But if you have no history of hallucinations (particularly if you’re an adult) then odds are very good what you’re seeing is real – you just have to figure out what that is.

Some people have both hallucinations and deep religious experiences. That’s a very difficult situation. In most cases, you’ll be better off setting your spiritual experiences aside and working through your mental health issues first. Some people can work on both at the same time. A few people have to work on both – it’s part of their sacred calling.

The only advice I can offer is to find a Pagan-friendly therapist. Because while successfully navigating the ordinary world is important, so is responding to a sacred call.

Learn to trust yourself

Read, study, and learn – collect as much knowledge as you can. Build a strong foundation of spiritual practice. If you believe something, believe it because you’re convinced it’s true, not because some authority figure told you it’s true. Not even if that authority figure is me. Especially not if it’s me – I don’t want responsibility for your life.

Know thyself.

Build a foundations of values and virtues.

Look for ordinary causes.

Practice the art of discernment.

And then when you’re convinced that what you saw or heard or felt really does have an Otherworldly source, act on it and follow it through to its conclusion.

For further reading

UPG: Why Unverified Personal Gnosis is Good and Necessary (March 2019)

Navigating the Mental Health Industry When You also have Mystical Experiences (November 2018)

Discernment: Distilling the Truth from our Pagan Experiences (July 2018)

Am I Hearing a God or Am I Going Crazy? (August 2017)

Spiritual Treatment Is No Substitute For Mental Health Care (March 2017)

spiritual experiences

Previous Post

April 9, 2019

Why The Fair Folk Aren’t Nature Spirits

Next Post

April 14, 2019 What To Do With My Body After I’m Dead

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Community CUUPS Druidry Foundations and Context Gods and Goddesses Magic Myth Nature Ritual Spiritual Practice Theology Travel Uncategorized Videos

Select a Month November 2026 October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are ____.

Select your answer to see how you score.

Protected Hidden Saved Uplifted