Sunday, August 2, 2015

If I cannot trust experience then what?


   I have had numerous spiritual experiences in my life. All unique, subjective encounters with something. These experiences are thrown into doubt now, what I have learned is that I lack discernment. Discernment is a critical skill for Christians to know truth from falsehood, good from evil, and the Holy Spirit from other spirits.
   Over the last two years or so I have been studying Jungian psychology. It interprets mental experiences such as dreams, visions, and synchronicity as personal events with their own internal logic. I was open to this idea as it gave some sense to the mild psychosis I was recovering from. With further study of dream interpretation, and symbolism, I continued to have mystical experiences from time to time. I was slowly suckered into a dabbling with astrology, which is clearly forbidden in the Bible.
   Recent events have shown me that my judgement has been lacking, and I have not been using discernment in the light of God's Word. The scriptures are very clear about the use of divination as idolatrous, being forbidden and useless. (Isaiah 47:13-14, Zechariah 10:2, Micah 3:5-8)
   Jungian Psychoanalysis teaches us to interpret all dream and symbolic material in reference to ourselves, thus making us blind to outside forces. This is especially significant for one such as myself who has had a psychosis, and have an archetype of the "anima" that has taken on a life of its own.

   "It is universally confessed," says Swedenborg, " that the Word is from God, is divinely inspired, and of consequence holy ; but still it has remained a secret to this day in what part of the Word its divinity resides, inasmuch as in the letter it appears like a common writing, composed in a strange style, neither so sublime, nor so elegant, nor so lucid as that which distinguishes the best secular compositions. Hence it is, that whosoever worships nature instead of God, or in preference to God, and in consequence of such worship makes himself and his own proprium [or selfhood] the centre and fountain of his thoughts, instead of deriving them out of heaven from the Lord, may easily fall into error concerning the Word, or into contempt for it, and say within himself, as he reads it, What is the meaning of this passage ? What is the meaning of that ? Is it possible this should be divine ?"
   - Swedenborg, S. S. 1-4 (emphasis added)

   It is clear from scripture that the foundation of all reality is given by the Lord. Therefore

Psalm 139:
" Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way."

   I have much to learn, but one thing is clear. Though I may doubt my heart, my thoughts, and my experiences; I need never doubt the love of God.

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