Hi Phil and all,

I offer here an intellectual lament about why it has been difficult for me to fully integrate the positive benefits of "rapture" into my daily life.
By "rapture" I'm talking about the sort of experience Teresa of Avila had: a sudden, forced, ascent of the soul out of the realm of the senses, up to a mystical union of love beyond intellectual understanding and, in my case, beyond any conscious awareness whatsoever. I had that experience in 95 and I'm only now starting to feel I'm really living out of it.

One main barrier is a theological culture that downplays the value of such experience to the point of pathologizing it.

For example, in Meditation Without Myth, Helminiak writes:

"In the past the neurotic saint may have been an acceptable phenomenon. Think of... Saint Teresa of Avila, whose "raptures" were apparently caused by neurological seizures... They grew through their afflictions. Surely... neuropathology forced her to learn to ignore the noises she heard in her head and to give attention to her healthy, deeper core...Despite and even because of the mental burdens they carried, these historical figures have made major contribution to culture and religion. It is because of these contribution that these people stand among the greats, not because of their "visions," "raptures," and "spells." We need to be careful to get that lesson right."

Reading Helminiak has helped me to identify a significant barrier to my integrating the fruits of my "rapture" experience in thought and deed. The problem is that I thought like Helminiak before my "rapture" and in some measure, I continue to think like him to this day. My Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross professor, John Welsh, had a view similar to Hleminiak. We skipped the parts about rapture. Like Helminiak, Walsh is into Lonergan.

But over time, against Helminiak's way of thinking, I have begun to admit to myself on a more consistent basis that I agree with Teresa of Avila in her assessment of her "rapture:" "(the soul) sees clearly that the good effects don't belong to it. It doesn't know how so much good was given it, but it well understands the tremendous benefit that each of these raptures bears with it. There is no one who believes this if they haven't experienced it."

Unlike a lot of K phenomenon that is hard to find in scripture and the lives of the saints, there is abundant documentation of the benefits of rapture.
Of course, the teaching is influenced by Neo-Platonism of which Helminiak (and maybe Lonergan followers in general) has nothing favorable to say. He caricatures it, then dismisses its value.

That intellectual prejudice would not be a problem for me, except I've experienced rapture. I am seeing that in order to deepen my Christian walk, I need to embrace the fruits of rapture, and the NeoPlatonic strand of Christian theology. K is a lesser benefit. I'm guessing will mean more asceticism in my practice: more poverty, more chastity, more solitude.

That is how I'm seeing it tonight.

The deviates amongst us
--------------------------------

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan:
One main barrier is a theological culture that downplays the value of such experience to the point of pathologizing it.

This is a barrier only if you let it be.

Since insights are always personal, you may indeed be prevented from sharing your experience of rapture, and the benefits thereof, with brethren at large. But a key question is to carefully examine your need to talk about this -- if you do feel such inner compusions.

The "pathological" amongst us will only be seen as such if we make our "deviations" known.

Seems to me this is a challenge for you, a test of Faith and resolve on your Path. As you yourself indicate at the end of your post. And no barrier at all!

Ryan, it sounds like what you're describing is similar to what St. Teresa called the prayer of ecstatic union (sometimes called "conforming union"). I know you're familiar with her writings, but you might check out http://www.catholic-church.org...g/9grades/grade8.htm Jordan Aumann also has some good reflections on it.

Fwiw, I don't think Lonergan has much to say about any of this. He was more concerned about the dynamics of insight and the functioning of the human consciousness. Helminiak's on his own, here, and is only voicing his opinion.

Teresa and others were concerned that raptures and similar experiences be discerned as to their source. Jordan Aumann goes into this at great length in "The Theology of Christian Perfection." They might not all be a consequence of supernatural grace; that's certainly true of raptures brought about by K risings. It could be both/and, or course.

It sounds like you've done some good work to discern what's going on, and the direction to proceed has become clear to you. I hope you have a good spiritual director to help provide support and ongoing discernment.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
it sounds like what you're describing is similar to what St. Teresa called the prayer of ecstatic union ...you might check out http://www.catholic-church.org...g/9grades/grade8.htm

A helpful article in a series, thanks Phil, for that link.

As for terminology, I would say yes to "ecstatic union." It was a form of that. A step of further accuracy is "rapture."

The article quotes Teresa here:

"I should like, with the help of God, to be able to describe the difference between union and RAPTURE, or elevation, or what they call flight of the spirit, or transport --- it is all one. I mean that these different names all refer to the same thing, which is also called ecstasy. It is much more beneficial than union: the effects it produces are far more important, and it has a great many more operations, for union gives the impression of being just the same at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, and it happens interiorly. But the ends of these raptures are both interior and exterior." (Ibid., p.347)

I have studied her use of the language of ecstasy both in the larger context of her testimony and using secondary sources as applied to her thinking. "Rapture" is a particularly intense form of ecstatic union marked, in her very refined usage, by being snatched up forcibly (irresistibly), and suddenly and rapidly. That is why I use that word. For me, it was impossible to tell (at least that first time, which was my only time) whether or not I was physically dying/dead -- it was that violent, if I may use that word, violent in a profoundly welcome, yet utterly terrifying way. The beginning, middle and end were ever so clearly marked. The concentric layers of my inner being were separated through progressively-simplifying ascent.

I do like Helminiak's notion of meditation "without myth" as one level of interpretation applied to this type of experience. Thus, I describe the physicality of it above just as it was without automatically claiming what the theotic meaning of it may be.

A learned and experienced spiritual director is hard to find. Since 2000, I have been seeing a nun friend on a monthly basis as we are car pooling a half our one way to a our Centering Prayer meeting. She has a PhD in theology and her masters degree at Fordam was a study of Teresa of Avila's stages of prayer. She does some other formal spiritual direction work in addition to teaching theology at the college level. Although our getting to know one another was not at first occasioned by a formal request -- "will you be my spiritual director" -- I have asked her if it would be ok for me to see our conversations along the way as spiritual direction and she was ok with that.

But the mental block about "rapture" is there with her too. A year ago when we were on a long trip together for an 8 day structured centering prayer retreat, I used the word "rapture" to described the experience I had had. I said I was using the word rapture in the sense that Teresa had used it thinking she would know what I meant. I was astonished when she said she didn't recall Teresa using that word. I told her I had studied it and she still remained unconvinced until, after the trip, I showed her the text.

I guess the block has various layers. Part of it is that the emphasis in so much of the study and practice, (even with people like her who have studied Teresa's teaching in depth) is so focused on growing in the life of prayer without rare experiences such as rapture, that such experiences in the testimony of Teresa and others is systematically overlooked.

quote:

Originally posted by HeartPrayer:
But a key question is to carefully examine your need to talk about this -- if you do feel such inner compusions.

Wise words, HeartPrayer. I'm moved by your discernment.

Note on the origin of the word rapture:

Paul uses the Greek word arpazw/ harpazo both to describe the �man in Christ� who was �caught up� to the third heaven, and to describe the coming of Christ when the dead and the living will be �caught up� in the air.

Strong's defines harpazo as: to seize, catch (away, up), pluck, pull, take (by force).

The 4th century Latin Vulgate used the word �repiemur� to translate harpazo:

deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul RAPIEMUR cum illis
in nubibus obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus
1 Thessalonians 4:17

And it is from rapiemur that we get the English word rapture as well as the Spanish equivalent Teresa used.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
Jordan Aumann goes into this at great length in "The Theology of Christian Perfection."

I'll check it out. Thanks Phil!

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
Teresa and others were concerned that raptures and similar experiences be discerned as to their source. Jordan Aumann goes into this at great length in "The Theology of Christian Perfection."

I'm writing from the library where I have just skimmed and read parts of The Theology of Chrisitan Perfection. Oddly, I found no discussion of discerning the "sources" of raptures and similar experiences. There was an interesting discussion of mystical phenomena looking at terminology: mainly the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary grace.

What I find most useful about the book at the moment is the format. It is a correspondance between two learned Christians about perfection and they actually have some points of outward difficulty in communication.

Greenstock writes: "Obviously you have misunderstood what I wrote... The remark was one which no theologian, no matter what his school of thought, could take any exception to." p. 50

Aumann replies: "After reading your last letter, I am almost convinced that our mutual discussions are to bear no fruit, because the exchange of letters seems to be degenerating rapidly into duel of words." p. 56

I don't know that I've ever seen a disagreement like that in print as a book before. A bit amusing, but helpful in showing how to disagree respectfully.

Ryan, I have the older edition, which doesn't have these kinds of exchanges. It was, in its time, a common text on the Christian spiritual life, summarizing a great deal of the teaching prior to Vatican II.

Aquinas, in his mode of explication, moving from thesis to objection to reply uses a kind of dialogical style too.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, until tonight, I had not done a close reading of Aquinas's discussion of Paul's rapture. Yes, he uses that word, rapture, or I suppose, in Latin, he would have used the word, RAPIEMUR.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3175.htm

It is wonderfully argued, and not at all plagued by the contemporary distaste for such an experience.

A fine online resource on rapture as understood by Aquinas, is a 2005 LSU Masters thesis in philosophy by a fellow named Casey Edler:
[URL=http://tinyurl.com/2o44n8[/URL]

He says that people ought not use their experience of rapture in an attempt to argue for the existence of God. I wonder who would do that? Not me. Casey, if you happen to read this, I'd love to have a bit of online conversation with you.

(url length edited by Phil)

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
I have the older edition, which doesn't have these kinds of exchanges.

Oh, I see. I'm not the only one who found such candid disagreement odd in a book.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
it sounds like what you're describing is similar to what St. Teresa called the prayer of ecstatic union (sometimes called "conforming union").

Aquinas writes: "Rapture adds something to ecstasy. For ecstasy means simply a going out of oneself by being placed outside one's proper order [Cf. I-II, 28, 3; while rapture denotes a certain violence in addition."

Here, Teresa follows Aquinas.

Paul, reflecting on the exceptional revelation in rapture wrote:

"... to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from being too elated."

I likewise seem to have need of some "thorn in the flesh" to keep me from being too elated; for no doubt, I am capable of becoming too elated. Without being too specific, it would seem desires of the flesh are my thorn. They seem more troublesome now than before rapture, for in ecstasy, I saw what it is like to be beyond such desires. Now, in contrast to the light of glory, such desires seem like an intrusion, and yet, the desires are as close to me as my very own heart.

Ryan, you wrote--
-------------------
Paul, reflecting on the exceptional revelation in rapture wrote:

"... to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from being too elated."

I likewise seem to have need of some "thorn in the flesh" to keep me from being too elated...
----------------

Thank you, Ryan, for sharing your thoughts on this subject. I know what you mean about divine revelation tempting us to become elated. What helps me keep things in perspective is reading about other's expereinces of rapture and similar divine encounters.

I am amazed at the number of modern-day saints who encounter God directly.

--------------------
Ryan --

By "rapture" I'm talking about the sort of experience Teresa of Avila had: a sudden, forced, ascent of the soul out of the realm of the senses, up to a mystical union of love beyond intellectual understanding and, in my case, beyond any conscious awareness whatsoever.

--------------

It is also interesting to me that we don't really know exactly what Paul or the other saints experienced during their rapture. The descriptions sound similar enough to be classified under one heading, but my guess is there is probably some (or a lot of) variance amongst them. And, as you know, words are so inadequate to convey these things!

I have been lifted up out of my body into some heavenly realm a few times, but each time has been different from the others. At the same time, your words would apply to each of them: "a sudden, forced, ascent of the soul out of the realm of the senses, up to a mystical union of love beyond intellectual understanding..."

-----------------

I had that experience in 95 and I'm only now starting to feel I'm really living out of it.

------------------------

I'm curious. What do you mean that you are "really living out of it"? My experiences of being raptured certainly have built my faith and trust in God's providence. There are also supernatural benefits of which I don't think I can be consciously aware, but there are a few truths revealed during those times that have changed me. During my second "rapture" I guess I'll call it, as I was being 'lowered' back into my body, I literally 'saw' something that moved me deeply. I saw that our lives, all of us walking on planet Earth, would be finished in an instant. Poof...just like that, in one instant...in less than the time it takes to blink your eyes, our lives on Earth will be over....this is very humbling...and when I consciously recall this truth and am sufficiently free of my "thorns in the flesh," I am more likely to love.

many blessings to you all!
Shasha

Originally posted by Shasha:
...we don't really know exactly what Paul or the other saints experienced during their rapture. The descriptions sound similar enough to be classified under one heading, but my guess is there is probably some (or a lot of) variance amongst them.
----------

Hi Shasha,

Thanks so much for connecting with my musings.

Yes, that is true what you have said about the experiences behind the words about rapture: there is variance. Take a phase like, "Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know; God knows." Paul repeats it twice. It is in the present tense: he did not know then, and he does not know while telling the story. What does that mean? Is it about not knowing whether he was dead or alive? Not knowing whether the sensation of being "out of body" was real objectively or just a perception? Looking back at my own ascent, I would say yes to both those not knowings although it has shifted somewhat. During, I both did not know whether I was dead or alive bodily, and I did not know whether it was "real" in some objective sense or only a private perception. Looking back, I'm fairly confident I did not "die," (science helps here), and I am also fairly confident it was a sensation and that I did not literally go anywhere (again findings of brain science help clarify this and that is information Paul did not have.) But I don't think it was only a private perception because there are others who have had some of the same perceptions, and as with me, the effects have been beneficial.

I've also wondered about the notion of "third heaven?" In Paul's time, in certain circles, that may have had a clear, shared meaning, but subsequently there have been lots of different conjectures. Whether or not it is what Paul experienced, the notion of three layers does have some resonance in my experience "out of body:" the first layer was the body shaped, brilliantly luminous, amazingly pleasurable, yet not corporal "soul" experience. The second layer was intellect alone -- no sensation of the lower "soul" of the first layer -- and the intellect was super alert and attentive, as well as completely non-anxious. The third layer is not in time or space and there is no direct memory of it except as a gap. Before the gap, "I" was intellect ascending, after the gap, "I" was reunited -- body, mind, and soul in luminous, almost weightless, peace. There was no sensation of the process of descent. The gap, is known then, by its marvelous effect. That gap is my "third heaven." "Paradise," fits more as a word for the reunion of body, mind and soul in a glorified manner, completely free of ordinary bodily desire. In my paradise I knew I was "in the body" in that I was breathing and I could have moved if I had wonted to; however, my body was not like I had ever known it before and I did not know if I would ever have that sense of paradise again after the experience faded, as I knew it would.

As for the idea of having "heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat," I relate that to the sound of the voice, that triggered the rapture, the sound of the voice that represented the invisible presence that mysteriously became me so that it was not I but the divine presence undoing the body/soul/mind that "I" had known. I am not permitted to repeat it in this sense: I cannot speak it with the power of God with which it was spoken to me, nor can I speak it with the same effect, either on me or on others. I simply cannot.

Paul tells the story in second person, which is very fitting, and yet somewhat confusing, as it leaves open the possibility that he heard the story from a friend. As does Aquinas, I assume it was Paul, but as Paul says, he did not want to boast. There are other ways in which one could say it happened to someone else. It happened passively: there was nothing I did or can do to make it happen. It happened transformatively, yet temporarily: the man that experienced it is in some sense, not the same man who is writing.

-----

You wrote: "I have been lifted up out of my body into some heavenly realm a few times, but each time has been different from the others. At the same time, your words would apply to each of them: "a sudden, forced, ascent of the soul out of the realm of the senses, up to a mystical union of love beyond intellectual understanding..."

------

Wonderful! It makes me wonder what you experienced. Please share more if you inasmuch as you feel comfortable doing so, Shasha. You spoke of something happeing "as I was being 'lowered' back into my body." I think already there is a difference from my experience because, for me there was the gap between ascent and then suddenly, with a inner-visual image of sparks falling, I was instantly back down, body and soul united. Did you have any such gap/discontinuity?

----
You wrote: I'm curious. What do you mean that you are "really living out of it"?

-------

It works on several levels, some inexpressible, as you have said. Part of it is simply accepting it as it is without a part of me saying something critical to the effect of, "it was insignificant."

Part of it is actually resting in that sense of paradise. Trusting, surrendering, forgiving, mercifully morphing into it. All the time knowing, that "this world" with all the war and injustice and hatred is still going on, and that I am in it. Yet, being "in" that zone of paradise, I am not "of" this world. In may ways I remain powerless. I personally am in solitude a lot. And yet, I am capable of compassion and neighborly love as the occasion for it arises. And of course, I still have my own fleshy tendencies, my thorn in the flesh, that keeps me aware, that even in my person, this is not yet paradise, and I am also "of" the world.

Thanks for listening. Your caring, thoughtful, discerning comments are welcome.

A thought on paradise.

Jesus said to the man on the cross beside him:

"...today, you will be with me in paradise."

How cool is that! He was so composed, non-anxious, so I don't know what (I'm not sure of the best word), call it "cool" even at the point of death. It reminds me of another story.

A monk, chased by a pair of tigers, found himself cornered at the edge of a cliff. He let himself down on a vine over the cliff. The tigers were pawing at the ground digging at the roots of the vine. Two mice started gnawing at the vine. It would be only minutes before he plunged to his death. Just then, the monk noticed a perfect, ripe strawberry growing out of the cliff, and the monk enjoyed the best tasting strawberry of his life.

The stories are very different except for one thing: in both, there is coolness on the brink of bodily death. I'm normally not at all that cool, but, let me tell you, that was the coolness my intellect was blessed with during the rapturous ascent wherein I literally did not know whether, bodily speaking, I was dead or alive: The best tasting strawberry ever, and the brink of paradise. That coolness is living in "this world" but not of it.

Note: the Greek word translated "paradise" is the same in Luke's story of Jesus on the cross and Paul's account of the "third heaven" ascent.

Ryan--
------------
Thanks for listening. Your caring, thoughtful, discerning comments are welcome.
---------------

OK, I'll leave all other comments out!
Just kiddin' ya.

I will have to take some time to get back with you on this fascinating topic...give me a few days.

In the meantime, keep the prayer lamps burning.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan:
I've also wondered about the notion of "third heaven?

More on the levels of "heaven."

Earlier today I made a statement about the levels of heaven that I now see as flawed. Mainly because, I have found something more helpful. But that too, I'm sure, is flawed. I'm just remembering and reading and praying and trying to find the best words as they come, but all my wordings are inadequate. That said, here is some more wording.

I will start this time with the bottom level of the experience: frail mortality in its naked horror. After I heard the "unspeakable words," it was as if I was a body prepared for slaughter. As Hebrews 4 says, "...the word of God is living and active...before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we much render an account."

That idea of being "laid bare" in the Greek, connotes "twisting the neck" of a sacrificial animal, incapacitating it. That fits what it felt like. I heard those words, and I was incapacitated, unable to breathe, unable to move, horrified by my vulnerability to inevitable death.

Next came the crux of the "violence:" a flash of exceedingly bright inner light, a deafening sound like rushing wind and an uplifting force that gave me the feeling, the sensation of literally levitating. It reminded me, in that moment, of Elijah's chariot of wind and fire that took him from earth bodily.

It felt like I was "in the body" but I could not allow myself to believe my senses. Next came the "soul" phase, described above, then the "intellect" phase, then the "gap," then paradise.

Looking at this whole picture, the bottom phase of naked awareness of mortality was marked by an all to clear certainty of being in my body. The first phase of questioning whether I was in my body or not in it was the seeming levitation phase. Now, I'm inclined to call that the "first heaven." The second heaven, then, is the soul phase. The third heaven the intellect phase

Then comes the gap, which is a whole other order..
This "gap," it seems to raise the question in article three of Aquinas's discussion of rapture whether Paul, in rapture "saw the essence of God." That is the mystical center that is seen by going blind, touched by becoming spirit, known by unknowing -- nobody can see the face of God and lives. And yet it is by dying that we are born to eternal life.

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
keep the prayer lamps burning.

Thanks Shasha, I look forward to hearing from you again, but no rush.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan:
[qb]

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
I have the older edition, which doesn't have these kinds of exchanges.

Oh, I see. I'm not the only one who found such candid disagreement odd in a book. [/qb]

Yes, that's truly odd, especially considering the topic. I'd like to see that edition sometimes. Sounds interesting. The older edition has been one of my stock references through the years.

- - -

I'm catching up on the exchange and will join it in progress sometime soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
I'd like to see that edition sometimes.

Oh, I checked the online card catalog and now I see that I made a mistake. I was reading a book titled, The Meaning of Christian Perfection, by Aumann and a coauthor.

Sorry about that confusion. Next time I get out there, I'll check again for the Theology of Christian Perfection.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:

Teresa and others were concerned that raptures and similar experiences be discerned as to their source. Jordan Aumann goes into this at great length in "The Theology of Christian Perfection." They might not all be a consequence of supernatural grace; that's certainly true of raptures brought about by K risings. It could be both/and, or course.

Phil, I'm at the library again and I finally found Aumann's Theology of Christian Perfection. Aumann is certainly not a "detractor" with respect to "rapture" as experienced by Teresa of Avila and my intellectual lament about pathologizing rapture does not apply to this book. My hunch is I would have made progress more easily with the sort of guidance Aumann offers.

As to the rapture, I too am interested in discerning its source. Aumann uses the notion of "supernatural" which I actually am finding helpful at the moment. Back when I experienced rapture though, I had no use for the notion of "supernatural." I wanted, in principle, to reduce everthing to a naturalistic frame. You've seen that tendency in my biblical interpretation style. My lament is then about my own old interpretive frame, and a prelude, I suppose, to kind of repentance from that frame of reference, a softening of it, at least.

If "supernatural" applies to anything I've ever experienced, it is that ascent. All the natural explanations I have tried fall short. There was, of course a natural context. Sleep paralysis, for example, played a part. But lots of people have sleep paralysis, and of the few that also have a sense of departing their bodies, it is only a small subset who find it leading them toward a comtemplative life. So the natural part is necessary but, as I have examined other testimonies of such paralysis, it not sufficient to explain the effects I recieved. To say otherwise, seems reductionist.

As for K energy. I think my journey with K had more to do with yoga and relationships with people doing yoga. I got into yoga in conjunction with a centering prayer group I joined in the late '90s prior to moving to Baltimore. So the steps were... rapture, centering prayer/yoga, K energy awareness. Part of the reason I was drawn in that direction, I think, is lonliness: people with K awareness may be few, but there are a lot more of them than people who have been raptured . I have a gift for picking up energies, so I used that gift to make connections. Another reason I was drawn in that direction was compassion. I want to make connections with spiritual seekers that they may find helpful.

That is how I'm seeing it this evening. Phil, thanks for suggesting this book.

You're welcome, Ryan. It truly is an excellent reference on the Christian mystical tradition.

Aumann's use of the term, "supernatural," is more nuanced than the way the term is generally used today (which can apply to everything from psychic gifts to ghosts to sublime experiences of grace). It pertains specifically to communication/grace from the divine that awakens in us a distinctive experience of the divine. So the criterion that would differentiate a natural type of mystical experience from a supernatural one is that the latter would leave one with a sense of having encountered God, or something of God. Additionally, there were certain signs one looked for to corroborate, such as a growth in charity, humility, gifts of the Spirit, etc. From what you've shared, it sounds like your rapture experience was a supernatural grace -- a gift you could never have attained without an intervention from God. This is a different kind of experience than the ecstatic states that often accompany K awakening, TM practice, Zen, etc.

Glad you found the book. I've checked around on the web and it seems difficult to locate a copy for sale at a reasonable price (over $200 on Amazon.com).

Dear Ryan, Sorry it�s taken me much longer than I predicted to get back with you.

I�ve reread your discussion above. Let me share some of my thoughts with you

I know it is a lonely kind of world one lives in when one has profound and unusual mystical experiences. At age 13 or so, I had an out-of-body, near death experience, but I didn�t get past my bedroom before I realized what was happening. I had one urgent thought, �I�ve got work to do!!� and I crashed back into my body. This was terrifying; reality was completely and permanently altered. And nobody understood or believed me when I told them.

I�ve had a few other experiences of traveling to some other place, but these were what I�d call in the astral realm, not rapture at all. Rapture is done by God; these other things were largely out of my own intentions. I�m with Phil on the need to discern the source.

I can certainly empathize with your questioning the �distractors� of your experience without knowing much of the full extent of what you�ve been through. It must be hard to have intellectual laments about such a deeply penetrating mystical experience. They seem opposed to one another. ; - )

To me, mystical experiences seem too varied to be able to be neatly catalogued. Maybe I�m just too sloppy about these things or lack patience in studying about them. Maybe if I read more of the early saints, I would see more use for the varied distinctions like �ecstatic union� and �prophetic union� and �conforming prayer,� etc.

In contrast to the astral stuff, there have been three times when I felt I was literally lifted up out of my body into a heavenly realm. These had nothing to do with kundalini (I don�t think) and owing fully to God�s Grace. I never went through the kind of �layers� that you describe, except there was a gap each time in the ascension. I never felt the lifting off, but I knew that that is what had happened.

On the first occasion, I had the distinct sense that I was being lowered back into my body. To me, rapture is distinct from any expanded state of consciousness in that one is literally out of their physical body�even though the profound state of unity consciousness can feel like one is not �in� their body since one�s consciousness completely one with creation.

Also, during the first rapture experience, there were angels, about 3 or 4, all around me and they felt to be accompanying me back down into my body. There was such beauty and peace in this �heavenly realm,� I recall vividly that I did NOT want to return to my body. Oh my God, how hard it was to leave! I �saw� that I would have to endure a lot of suffering ahead. But I knew at the same time that I had no choice. On the second occasion, I was sleeping and then suddenly I was in a �place� I can only describe as eternal, no other words come close. I saw the planet Earth, the sense of our lives being fleeting, and that Christ would change all of humanity. I awoke knowing that I had been in God�s Presence; I was in a kind of trembling awe. Most recently, the third time was different still. I felt a kind of Perfection in this place, like paradise, I suppose. I could 'see' God's heart about a certain matter in my life. I was not aware of lifting off or returning, just knew that I had been lifted up and brought back down. This last time, I was in a stunned silence all day as I was reeling from the awesome peace of this place, not really able to bring it back down but just letting some of the 'fragrance' linger.

All three rapture expereinces had this in common: they followed times of intense prayer; I was aware that I had been lifted out of my body, not just an expansion of consciousness; I felt indescribable peace and love; I knew I was in the Presence of God, the Maker, God of Israel; and this was possible because of my worshipping Him through Christ Jesus.

Ryan, there are many people (modern-day saints) who have been raptured into Heaven. They have had experiences of actually moving about, talking and interacting with Jesus, other saints, etc, in addition to the heavenly peace and love part. I have heard directly from or read about the rapture of these folks: Mahesh Chavda, Bobby Conner, Bob Jones, Heidi Baker, John Paul Jackson, Chris Harvey, David Herzog, and Todd Bentley. These people have all been deeply transformed during their walk with Christ and seem to have received far-reaching spiritual gifts to change the world. They show great reverence for their experiences of rapture. They don�t treat them lightly, but seem to appreciate them in the context of receiving just another of God�s many gifts to encourage and equip them for their ministry.

That�s it for now. I welcome your response.

I am wishing you God�s love and peace! Shasha