Addendum 3...more on unusual experiences in deep prayer...(#11)
and a bit of a meander as to where things went wrong with institutional Christianity leading to "the culture wars"....but mainly, the redundant post on unusual experiences, because warnings against following such experience cannot be emphasized enough. What the world needs are more people united to God, and not more assumed messages from the great beyond.
Firstly, without attempting to frighten away seekers, it is a known fact that in deep concentration/prayer/"meditation", the practitioner can experience some unusual things, as already mentioned.
Whether one wishes to ascribe them to the "subconscious", or demonic influence, or divine intervention (always risky), the fact remains that strange things can happen, with those who are of long time, and disciplined, practice reporting any number of highly unusual things.
Martial artists of Eastern practice are known to achieve some amazing feats through their strength of concentration, while other people have had assorted sensations, or abilities to know things they should not know, whether separated by only distance or even time, and also run of the mill visions/hallucinations or sudden solving of complex problems, or any number of assorted happenings reported to include what might be termed miraculous.
The point being, the purpose of prayer is union with God, and anything which sidetracks from that is choosing the lesser over the greater, and chasing after such happenings can be quite dangerous to sanity and soul. Seemingly holy things distracting you from loving union with God stand a very good chance of being anything but holy, and as also already mentioned, such things should simply be put aside while one returns to the real work at hand. Chasing after such things is almost always a manifestation of self and greed, and to be avoided conscientiously. This includes chasing after religious ecstasy which comes and goes only at the will of God, and not at yours. You are not there in prayer to "get" anything, but are there to GIVE love to God.
As for where things have gone wrong in institutional religion, I could make a good case that Christianity started to go wrong since Constantine, and the general acceptance of the religion, which meant large masses of people were being brought in without proper spiritual catechesis, and which only accelerated with the expansion of Christianity into Europe and mass baptisms of rulers and entire peoples. There formerly was a very, very lengthy process of intense GUIDED prayer and fasting for converts as shown in oldest surviving catechisms, before they ever were baptised, confirmed, and admitted to communion.
I could also make the case that all which kept the religion going at all past that point from a spiritual perspective was the rise of the chains of monasteries draped across Europe. Much the same could also be said for the Eastern Churches. And of course, even those worthy influences were fleeting as various monasteries had various levels of proper spiritual practice which inevitably devolved to rote observance and lax practice, leading to a life of relative wealth and ease (and many cases of debauchery), where some new order/leader would get back to basics and start all over again.
Meanwhile, the masses were often left to own devices and given only rudimentary basics of the faith, with very little instruction on a true spiritual life, and often left with only pius superstition. Granted, there have been many holy members in that class, the majority known only to God, where beautiful churches and rites were their helps while providing a proper place for contemplative delving...but, those people were always a small minority, very often supplied no help, and no few of them also ran afoul of Church authority when they strayed through lack of proper guidance, leading also to the institutional Church having a deep suspicion of any spirituality at all past the Breviary, Missal, and later Ignatian Exercises, which was throwing the baby out with the bath water.
That has carried forward to today, where the Faith has largely trundled forward helped only by those relatively few holy consecrated and lay members, and otherwise powered only by cultural and ethnic allegiance inertia, slowing all the while, until it has finally stopped and the wheels have fallen off.
If anyone doubts this, how many today can say they have been given any guidance in a truly spiritual life? Anything, ever, under the category of spiritual catechesis? A real spiritual director/not confessor? Try reading the mission statements of most churches and religious orders, or even latest Vatican pronouncements....almost entirely wordly concerns, sprinkled with "people of God" and "guided by the Holy Spirit" statements for holy flavoring while apparently having never known God at all past foggiest of notions. If you were ever to ask them if they had experienced God, what was it like, and to please show you how to do this, you likely would be met with hemming and hawing followed by holy sounding blather providing nothing of concrete nature, but vast amounts of "mission" and "new evangelisation" statements. Last I checked, the Holy Spirit is God, and it rather hard to be guided by that of which one is ignorant or nearly so. When united to God, you know what needs doing, not the other way around.
Many Catholics today would like to point the finger at Vatican II, but the seeds of what happened in that Council and especially what happened after that Council were sown long ago in what had become a self-referential Sacrament-dispenser institution rather than dispenser of spiritual guidance. Surely we need the Sacraments to nourish us on our spiritual journey, but the Churches had become dispensers of ONLY Sacraments and nothing else for the vast majority of her members. As the collapse has continued, many of the most non-spiritual lay and consecrated see it as a corporation needing to "lighten up the rules" to encourage more customers/consumers to provide working capital for their support, where those "rules" are actually only the fruits of those people who have experienced God, where one can see love of God requires certain behavior to stay in union with God and our intended destiny.
But, since the Churches are not providing the answers to seekers, seekers go elsewhere, and no amount of marketing will change that, while today, minus beautiful churches and beautiful rites, not even dedicated seekers can find a haven for their own spiritual self-advancement. Nor does changing the Churches to copy outside worldly trends do anything more than accelerate the collapse, since if it the same inside as outside, why should anyone waste time and money there, when what they preach and teach available free elsewhere? Who wants to donate to anything which only tells you what a fine person you are, no matter what you do or don't do? We have psychologists and the internet for that.
This all is so patently self-evident, but still entirely invisible to the self-refential institution members who think only keeping things the same as 60yrs ago, or changing everything, will fix all problems. They have lost sight of the purpose of everything, which is union with God in this life and the next, even though our very purpose for being is plainly stated in their own catechism as, "to KNOW God, to LOVE God, to SERVE God".
