This is admittedly long and is not for everyone, but embodies a few things I am contemplating and illustrates perhaps for some who may be interested, why I am reflecting on some of the things I am and what they have to do with this support group and the larger inquiries here.

A couple things I am contemplating partly based on clashes with Atheists in this group and elsewhere is the idea of an 'experiential' sense of connection to self, others, nature and something transcendent as opposed to a 'conceptual' sense of God.

People of many different cultures have had these experiences and conceptualized these experiences in different ways over generations.

The argument as far as I can tell between atheists and Religious people as well as 'spiritual' people in whatever capacity is what these experiences are created by - ie. a 'spirit'? a psychological deficiency? a projection of mind?

As posted in an earlier thread even Einstein was an advocate of intuition. He was also friends with Carl Jung who spent years analyzing the psyche through a perspective that there was something valuable in the inner explorations. Jung's journey formed partly after his visions of genocide in a sort of 'prophetic' way were confirmed when the holocaust occurred after he had thought they were imaginary. His journey is outlined in his memoir - Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.

For me and many people, part of our 'Recovery from Mormonism' is the sorting out of 'spiritual' experiences from our past and grappling to understand how to contextualize them. I have had an atheist friend admit to intuitive experiences that went beyond chance during his mission when he was actively praying. At the time he asserted that that meant that the Mormon church is/was true. Over time though he found atheism and also felt the same internal sense of 'connection' or 'guidance' and 'confirmation' of it being true, enough that he now considers himself an atheist.

For me personally, I left Mormonism years ago and thought I was just done with it. Over the years though I felt something internally pulling me back. I thought for a time that perhaps somehow I would end up rejoining, but what I found was a mixed bag. I found things I liked and things I did not like.

I found family, culture, and community which I felt more 'whole' around in so many ways, but I also felt less 'whole' around so much of it. I felt like my mind was being put in a vice and I could not think for myself and it took all the mystery out of life because they had 'all the answers'.

Eastern philosophy in some cases whether Hinduism or Buddhism for me provided a language for some experiences, but I also could not accept a lot of the ideas in more simplistic terms.

Yoga for example was helpful for me in opening up my body and freeing a lot of tension. It helped me connect me to a sense of inner feelings that helped guide me more than my conceptual mind was guiding me. It helped connect me to something I would call 'me'. It was more experiential and less conceptual.

As I worked with yoga, emotions came up, a lot of pain and anger. I then saw a therapist which helped some. I also found a meditation teacher. Ironically, it was these practices that had me realize I needed to face some emotional issues internally with Mormonism and I began to feel a strong 'pull' to return to the place of my youth.

As I did, I began to face a lot of the pains of my youth, many of which had deep ties to Mormonism. I was surprised to find that I was disturbed by the idea of looking at many of the historical details. I had not consciously had much of a tie to Mormonism in my life prior. I was mostly disinterested.

For me, whether some form of 'spirit' or some sort of 'prana' (the yogic name for 'life force' that flows through each of us and the world around us), I found that I felt a need to connect with family and a bond with them and certain friends, that I could not explain.

I felt a more compelling sense of inner guidance than I felt with the 'spirit' which often felt more like guilt tome. As a youth I felt a lot of guilt and obligation which I figured was 'the spirit' telling me I should do something. I also at times felt a sort of 'light' but frankly often that felt a bit too 'pure' for me and not like a deeper transcendental love.

For all the bad rap I have received about being 'new agey', I am one who is deeply skeptical of a lot of things. I have an attraction and curiosity about things, but also a more rational part of me that is definitely uncomfortable with the projections that are so clearly and so often mixed in with the 'new age' movement. I am skeptical and cautious of my own projections.

For years I fought an inner sense to return to be around my Mormon family and friends. I did not like visiting them even infrequently. Part of my personal interest in the work of Jung has been that the thought was more sophisticated than just 'it is all true and it is your angel guides telling you this or that.' I did not see angels. I did not have dreams of a dead loved one.

Being around my Mormon family has for me been grounding in some very healthy ways. It has been nice to see people who have some element of desire to treat people well and be 'Christlike', but often it feels 'fake' and 'inauthentic'. I can see stability in relationships in some cases in my family that I envy in my own future relationships.

My throwing out the church in the way I did, left me without an internal structure which had me feel more like I was floating in life than anchored. Perhaps that is why some turn to atheism with such a fierceness. The ground is there. You count on what can be proven. You don't have to consider anything else.

I can't say what I have viewed as inner guidance is always right, but there have been some surprising 'coincidences' over the years. For a while I was more 'new agey'. But my skepticism leaves me hanging. I am between worlds sometimes, exploring, wanting something more than nothing and with an experience of something that seems more than nothing.

It goes beyond any desire to hold on to a conceptual God. I make jokes about who and what God is. It isn't about holding onto a desire for some sort of afterlife experience. I don't necessarily have some experience of this external being 'loving me' like a lot of Mormons believe.

My experiences have led me personally to believe/feel that there is something more than 'nothing', but at the same time I know a lot of people have never felt anything. My experiences have seemed far beyond the potential of coincidence. But I am aware that I can and have projected things at different points in my life.

Many people of different religions or lack of religion have felt things at times in life such as a strong sense to call someone, only to find out that that person is in deep need. For example, I have had one incident where I was literally woken up in the night to support someone I did not even know and never met, and never spoke to again prior.

That said, I do not assert that that was an angel that woke me up. I do not assert that it was a loving heavenly father, or that it means Jesus is real. Nor do I assert that it was a Buddha or a Hindu God. But, it was something beyond my conscious mind.

Experiences like this have made me explore other options than Atheism. When I felt a strong pull to return to Mormon country, I figured perhaps it meant that I was going to rejoin the LDS religion. I shuttered at the thought. I am not someone who likes to dress up, or likes the drone of the talks, or the repeated lessons, and the simplistic thinking of the community. It often feels like the opposite of an experiential connection to something beyond myself, which is more what I have found in some of the things like meditation and yoga.

Some 'yogis' make big bold claims. Frankly I have not had a lot of the big bold experiences that some claim. I don't feel particularly enlightened. I am left with different questions. Part of why I chose 'wonderer' relates basically to the way I don't feel like I know. I feel between worlds very much.

My experience was not that I prayed and did not get answers within the religion. Ironically I left the LDS church following mainly my feelings, because it just didn't 'feel' right to me. It felt dark to me. At the time I thought maybe it was something wrong with me and the church was all right.

When I found Buddhism, it felt 'warm' and I was looking for that. I liked the art and the incense. I only started studying it out of a sense that maybe if I liked the art and the incense, then I would like something they had to say. I liked some of it and some of it I burnt out on fairly quickly. But I liked the chants sometimes and I liked the altars. Over time though even that lost its luster. It felt foreign. I wanted something more familiar.

Sometimes I wish my life felt more in my personal control. It would be easier than feeling in between worlds. I have not had profound experiences with Jesus really that I can think of. Some interesting meditations and senses of maybe love in a more universal way, but not some sense of a 'testimony' or anything.

The things I have personally liked from Buddhism and Hinduism, like someone mentioned with Catholicism was often going to one of their temples (which is something I have done mostly rarely, other than one I attended briefly). Often the places I have been the people barely spoke English. I was a foreigner in their world. Other times they were more westernized centers.

I am leary of just about anything at this point, but something in me feels 'fed' by being around these situations on rather rare occasions - once or twice a year if that at this point. Sometimes it is something cultural. I feel 'home' with it.

To me, the concept of conversion of another to such things, is like trying to convert someone to a sport I play or a style of music. I don't so much have an interest in converting. I have lived long enough to know some are attracted to such things, others are not.

I do not assert myself smarter, or more enlightened for having such experiences. If anything it makes me more conflicted. I do not think myself a Messiah of atheists. Frankly I would like to hear some explanations from an atheist who has had their own experiences as to how they have conceived of such things for themselves, or a scientific explanation that lends anything that feels truly wise and insightful based on what I have experienced.

I have had experiences which are admittedly strange and less commonly experienced by people. I think there are smarter people who have not had such experiences and perhaps wiser as well. But in simple atheist statements 'you are dumb' or 'there is nothing supernatural', it doesn't speak to my experiences in any intelligent way.

For me sometimes I 'feel' things around Mormons that I like. But I also 'feel' a lot that I do not like. I don't 'feel' at home in such a setting. I 'feel' manipulated and 'shut down' in a lot of ways around all that. I am around Mormon family and friends regularly and if I speak about things, then they are interpreted through their religious constructs which do not then speak to my own logic or my sense of self and experience.

If there are people on the board who have similar experiences and have arrived at some sort of sense of conceptual integration for themselves, I would love to hear from you. If there are people who have brilliant biological wisdom from Dawkins that truly speaks to such things, I would love to hear that. If there are people with eastern views, pagan views, etc.. who have a more sophisticated articulation of things, perhaps we can speak off board on some topics. And perhaps for those interested, I will continue to post a certain amount of personal questions and explorations as they relate to my inner struggles with Mormonism and the Mormon community past, present and future as it relates to my own life.

Islam, Buddhism, yoga, Mormonism, atheism, religious art, meditation, mysticism, Mormon community, Mormon mysticism, prayer, yoga, meditation and psychics. Sometimes you like it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes with these things you get a warm-fuzzy or an unexplainable coincidence occurs, sometimes it doesn't.

Has anyone had a similar experience and arrived at a conceptual integration, you ask?

When I was "having" a spiritual experience back when I was TBM, I always somehow knew that it was a play thing--I was making it up, manufacturing it as I went along. So, there was never a reconciliation in my mind with what I had "felt" and my new paradigm of the world.

I guess we're all different. But I was relieved that I didn't have to pretend that there was a god once I dumped the god meme and thinking that I must be doing something wrong because I didn't really feel it.

Motrix...

Yah, that sounds like a different experience and perception than mine. My experiences have seemed and felt much more real and upon analysis of myself and others who are more cynical they have often seemed/felt more real as well. Although it has not seemed/felt like some major 'prophet' or anything and I don't have some huge 'undeniable testimony' of anything really. Hence the conundrum.

I believe in the importance of not foreclosing on a set belief system about life. I love Jung, Rumi, Taoist, and Buddhist ideas. I find the reduction of the mystery of existence down to an all inclusive narrative, including Atheism, failing to match my experience. No foreclosure for me.
...
I have found Jung’s book Memories, Dreams, and Reflections on line for free. What a find! Here is the link as well as a story from Jung’s youth:

http://arthursbookshelf.com/other-stuff/philos/Memories,%20Dreams,%20Reflections%20-%20Carl%20Jung.pdf

One fine summer day that same year I came out of school at noon
and went to the cathedral square. The sky was gloriously blue, the
day one of radiant sunshine. The roof of the cathedral glittered, the
sun sparkling from the new, brightly glazed tiles. I was overwhelmed
by the beauty of the sight, and thought:
"The world is beautiful and the church is beautiful, and God made all
this and sits above it far away in the blue sky on a golden throne
and..." Here came a great hole in my thoughts, and a choking
sensation. I felt numbed, and knew only: "Don't go on thinking now!
Something terrible is coming, something I do not want to think,
something I dare not even approach. Why not? Because I would be
committing the most frightful of sins. What is the most terrible sin?
Murder? No, it can't be that. The most terrible sin is the sin against
the Holy Ghost, which cannot be forgiven. Anyone who commits that
sin is damned to hell for all eternity. That would be very sad for my
parents, if their only son, to whom they are so attached, should be
doomed to eternal damnation. I cannot do that to my parents. All I
need do is not go on thinking."
That was easier said than done. On my long walk home I tried to
think all sorts of other things, but I found my thoughts returning again
and again to the beautiful cathedral which I loved so much, and to
God sitting on the throne--and then my thoughts would fly off again
as if they had received a powerful electric shock. I kept repeating to
myself: "Don't think of it, just don't think of itI" I reached home in a
pretty worked-up state. My mother noticed that something was
wrong, and asked, "What is the matter with you? Has something
happened at school?" I was able to assure her, without lying, that
nothing had happened at school. I did have the thought that it might
help me if I could confess to my mother the real reason for my
turmoil. But to do so I would have to do the very thing that seemed
impossible: think my thought right to the end. The poor dear was
utterly unsuspecting and could not possibly know that I was in
terrible danger of committing the unforgivable sin and plunging
myself into hell. I rejected the idea of confessing and tried to efface
myself as much as possible. That night I slept badly; again and
again the forbidden thought, which I did not yet know, tried to break
out, and I struggled desperately to fend it off. The next two days
were sheer torture, and my mother was convinced that I was ill. But I
resisted the temptation to confess, aided by the thought that it
would cause my parents intense sorrow.
On the third night, however, the torment became so unbearable that
I no longer knew what to do. I awoke from a restless sleep just in
time to catch myself thinking again about the cathedral and God. I
had almost continued the thought! I felt my resistance weakening.
Sweating with fear, I sat up in bed to shake off sleep. "Now it is
coming, now--it's serious! I must think. It must be thought out
beforehand. Why should I think something I do not know? I don't
want to, by God, that's sure. But who wants me to? Who wants to
force me to think something I don't know and don't want to know?
Where does this terrible will come from? And why should I be the
one to be subjected to it? I was thinking praises of the Creator of
this beautiful world, I was grateful to him for this immeasurable gift,
so why should I have to think something inconceivably wicked? I
don't know what it is, I really don't, for I cannot and must not come
anywhere near this thought, for that would be to risk thinking it at
once. I haven't done this or wanted this, it has come on me like a
bad dream. Where do such things come from? This has happened
to me without my doing. Why? After all, I didn't create myself, I came
into the world the way God made me--that is, the way I was shaped
by my parents. Or can it have been that my parents wanted
something of this sort? But my good parents would never have had
any thoughts like that. Nothing so atrocious would ever have
occurred to them."
I found this idea utterly absurd. Then I thought of my grandparents,
whom I knew only from their portraits. They looked benevolent and
dignified enough to repulse any idea that they might possibly be to
blame. I mentally ran through the long procession of unknown
ancestors until finally I arrived at Adam and Eve. And with them
came the decisive thought: Adam and Eve were the first people;
they had no parents, but were created directly by God, who
intentionally made them as they were. They had no choice but to be
exactly the way God had created them. Therefore they did not know
how they could possibly be different. They were perfect creatures of
God, for He creates only perfection, and yet they committed the first
sin by doing what God did not want them to do. How was that
possible? They could not have done it if God had not placed in
them the possibility of doing it. That was clear, too, from the
serpent, whom God had created before them, obviously so that it
could induce Adam and Eve to sin. God in His omniscience had
arranged everything so that the first parents would have to sin.
Therefore it was God' s intention that they should sin. This thought
liberated me instantly from my worst torment, since I now knew that
God Himself had placed me in this situation. At first I did not know
whether He intended me to commit my sin or not. I no longer thought
of praying for illumination, since God had landed me in this fix
without my willing it and had left me without any help. I was certain
that I must search out His intention myself, and seek the way out
alone. At this point another argument began. "What does God
want? To act or not to act? I must find out what God wants with me,
and I must find out right away."
I was aware, of course, that according to conventional morality there
was no question but that sin must be avoided. That was what I had
been doing up to now, but I knew I could not go on doing it. My
broken sleep and my spiritual distress had worn me out to such a
point that fending off the thought was tying me into unbearable
knots. This could not go on. At the same time, I could not yield
before I understood what God's will was and what He intended. For
I was now certain that He was the author of this desperate problem.
Oddly enough, I did not think for a moment that the devil might be
playing a trick on me. The devil played little part in my mental world
at that time, and in any case I regarded him as powerless
compared with God. But from the moment I emerged from the mist
and became conscious of myself, the unity, the greatness, and the
superhuman majesty of God began to haunt my imagination. Hence
there was no question in my mind but that God Himself was
arranging a decisive test for me, and that everything depended on
my understanding Him correctly. I knew, beyond a doubt, that I
would ultimately be compelled to break down, to give way, but I did
not want it to happen without my understanding it, since the
salvation of my eternal soul was at stake.
"God knows that I cannot resist much longer, and He does not help
me, although I am on the point of having to commit the unforgivable
sin. In His omnipotence He could easily lift this compulsion from me,
but evidently He is not going to. Can it be that He wishes to test my
obedience by imposing on me the unusual task of doing something
against my own moral judgment and against the teachings of my
religion, and even against His own commandment, something I am
resisting with all my strength because I fear eternal damnation? Is it
possible that God wishes to see whether I am capable of obeying
His will even though my faith and my reason raise before me the
specters of death and hell? That might really be the answer! But
these are merely my own thoughts. I may be mistaken. I dare not
trust my own reasoning as far as that. I must think it all through once
more."
I thought it over again and arrived at the same conclusion.
"Obviously God also desires me to show courage," I thought. "If that
is so and I go through with it, then He will give me His grace and
illumination?
I gathered all my courage, as though I were about to leap forthwith
into hell-fire, and let the thought come. I saw before me the
cathedral, the blue sky. God sits on His golden throne, high above
the world--and from under the throne an enormous turd falls upon
the sparkling new roof, shatters it, and breaks the walls of the
cathedral asunder.

Alden...

Thanks. I have read that book. I did quite like it. I would love to find more like that somehow. There is one I read that I quite liked, well a few others I guess, but lately have not found anything that is really turning my crank.

I guess it may be interesting for me to consider reading that again sometime and reflecting based on where I am now vs. where I was then.

I think with the Atheist peer pressure being about as strong as the Mormon peer pressure in my life at the moment it can be quite exhausting. I probably do need to seek out the right support group context somewhere maybe among some exMormons who can get that facet too, and/or just have this plus that group somehow and get the needs met in different ways.

I find that with Jungians, there are often the academic type who are less experiential oriented and more conceptual and/or just more dry in their discussion of things.

I think though I will start looking in some new places and see what I come up with.

Here are two books I have enjoyed:
The Whole Heart of Tao – Bright-Fry, A translation of the Tao Te Ching that I find helpful
Essential Rumi- Coleman Barks, A translation of selected poems by Rumi
I have also found the ten day Buddhist Vipassana meditation courses life changing.
aldenbrindle@hotmail.com

alden thanks...

You know there is a Buddhist text I have wanted to read for a while that is by Reginald Ray which has a lot of work with imagery that I think could do me good. I didn't feel ready for it a while back, but maybe I am ready for that one now.

Also, it has been years since I briefly scanned the Tao. May be time to give that a deeper look. A friend has explored Rumi and shared some great things with me, but I have not explored him much myself.

Will probably send you a quick email as well.

I believe in God, but just don't claim to know exactly what God is.

But one possibility we must accept is that it might all be in our heads. This doesn't mean it's all crazy. First, I think there's a probability there's a difference between being conscious and consciousness. We may have premonitions, intuitions and feelings that end up being right on target based on things of which we were never conscious.

Even if this life is all just about this life, and atheists are completely correct about their assertions of God and the universe, it doesn't mean this universe and our existence are without mystery and wonders.