Growing Up Religious
Being different from everyone else makes you quite individualistic
At age 13 I felt I had my entire life figured out. My interpretation of the Pentecostal Christian faith pretty much went like this.
Life is a test. If I do what’s right I pass and live an eternity in heaven. If I fail I go to hell. It’s not easy to live this life but that shouldn’t stop us from trying. besides, I’m saved. That means I go into heaven no matter what right?
This black-and-white thinking caused me to be quite stubborn at times. It seemed as if I had an answer for everything.
Abortion, sin
Sex before marriage, sin
Lying, sin
Swearing, sin
Murder, sin
Growing up
Yes, I was raised in a religious family but I was pretty religious myself, which meant I didn’t find it hard to adjust to the various rules. The ones I did disobey were the ones that restricted me from playing the video games I wanted to play. I felt that it was fine because it technically wasn’t a sin to play violent video games. Amazing logic from young me.
I went to church every Sunday and youth group every Friday. Since I grew up in the church, I was quite known already. That gave me the confidence I needed to be myself and be very extroverted to the people around me. While most people may think otherwise, I felt the most free at church.
My most powerful spiritual experience
Every year my church would host a summer camp, which I would go to. They were a lot of fun. Paintball, ziplining, and many many games. Lots of competition as well.
I loved it
The last year I went, I believed I had an experience with God, which I now believe was,
Hypnosis
I’ll explain why later.
Every night, at this summer camp, we’d have a praise and worship towards the end of the day. There were talks at our church and a bit at this camp of people being,
Slain in the spirit
It basically meant people fell on the ground back first because they were supposedly filled with the spirit. Someone would conveniently catch them, of course.
I wanted that experience. A part of me believed it would fix the intense social anxiety I was having in high school. If I could be as confident and extroverted as I was in church but for school instead, that would be spectacular.
As the music played, I lifted up my hands and closed my eyes. As some time passed eventually one of the workers asked to pray for me and I accepted. She placed her hand on my shoulder, thanked God that I was alive, and said many other encouraging things about me.
It felt nice
I really wanted to be “slain in the spirit” but I wasn’t in the mood to fall backward like I thought I’d be. So I tried to force it. I tried to fall backward flat on my back. To the surprise of no one, my back foot kept catching me.
Thinking back that was probably for the best. The lady jumped a little bit on my first attempt. I’m guessing that’s because she wasn’t ready to catch me since she was in front of me. At the time, I was actually quite disappointed I didn’t fall backward.
Do you not trust God, Aaron? Do you not belive he will send someone to catch you?
Kind of like that one verse in the bible where Jesus is in the desert and Satan tempts him to jump off of a high place.
I tried to force myself to fall backward again as she was praying for me, but I caught myself again. Then towards the end of the prayer, I just agreed I’d fall backwards no matter what, and that’s exactly what I did.
Just let go
Thankfully someone did catch me. I was then laid on the ground, I felt so at peace. I imagined myself breaking out of a glass barrier, which was symbolism for my social anxiety. I wanted to talk with so many people, but the barrier was always stopping me. At the time, I believed God freed me of my social anxiety.
Hypnosis
This experience was a huge reason why I stayed a Pentecostal Christian for a bit longer. I believed I was healed by Jesus Christ. Which means he must be real then, right?
When the lady was praying for me, my eyes were closed and I was imagining myself being broken free from my social anxiety. In hypnosis, the hypnotist would typically tell you to close your eyes and to think about specific things. As I began to fall backward the first time, the lady must have sensed I was falling and she said.
Let go! Let go!
My body then felt like jello and I felt I had no choice anymore. What if I was hypnotized by accident?
The falling out
My social anxiety was cleared but covid struck halfway through the school year. So sadly, I didn’t get to utilize my new confidence as much as I’d like to.
I remained a Christian for the next 3 years. When I dropped out of college to pursue various passion products, I ended up questioning my faith quite a bit. I stopped going to church every Sunday around this time, and I resigned from being a youth leader. I can write about the many reasons why I stopped, but that’s a story for another time.
The present
Fast forward to now, I’m a deist. This means someone who believes in the existence of a God but they don’t believe they will ever intervene. Apparently, Abraham Lincoln was one too, neat.
I didn’t come up with my hypnosis theory until a couple of days ago. A part of me wants to see an actual hypnotist just to see if it was similar to the moment I was “slain in the spirit.” If it is similar and I really was hypnotized, I think I could get a lot of Christians to rethink their spiritual experiences. For better or for worse.
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