An experience from senior retreat and a Catholic mind trick...?

I went to a Catholic High School and had religion class every year since 5th grade. Our senior year of highschool, we went on a senior retreat to a religious camp or something. This is what it consisted of.

1. Get to school at the normal 8am time.

2. Load up on a bus and drive to the camp. (about an hour drive.)

3. Get there and have a group meeting where we did group activities and stuff.

4. Put our stuff in our room and ate lunch.

5. Hid in the forest to smoke a cigg.

6. 2 hours of playing ultimate frisbee or football.

7. More group activites.

8. Dinner

9. More physical activites

10. More group activities

11. At midnight we all went to the chapel for a mass where they offered to pray over us.

Now, I'm sure you have seen on tv where they grab the person's head, yell at them and than the person falls over. That is what this was. It is supposed to allow the holy spirit to flow through your body.

At the time I was really struggling with my faith in God and really wanted to believe, so I agreed to take part in it. I stood up there and had two men behind me while another grabed my head real tight and started talking very loudly in tongues. (gibberish that we don't understand that is supposed to be the secret language of god, it is said that the speaker usually doesn't even understand what he is saying.)

I'm not sure if I spelled that correct but oh well.

Anyway, after about a minute of this I got very weak in the knees and fell to the ground. I started crying, because at the time a viewed it as the answer I was looking for.

But the more I thought about what had happened, the more I realised the tactics they used for the entire process. We had a full day of physical and mental exercise, and didn't go to mass to get prayed over untill midnight when we were all exausted. I couldn't help but wonder why that had to be last thing of the night.

It has always seemed very curious to me that they choose to run the camp in this way. It leads me to believe that the entire process was simply us being tired and mentally exausted while someone grabed our head tight restricting blood flow to our brains. I'm not sure if griping the skull in a tight manner could produce that effect, but the whole process has never led me to change my view on god.

All the experience achieved was making me think the Catholic Church uses tricks to try and make people think they are experiencing a godly experience.

Tbh i think your right. I beleive that practice is called the Toronto Blessing?

I think if you do that to people who are a)dog tired and b) desperate to beleive in God and be touched by him, then your sure to get a response of some kind.

[All the experience achieved was making me think the Catholic Church uses tricks to try and make people think they are experiencing a godly experience.]

IMHO, without superstition, without fear of the unknown, without our in grained sexuality, what has the church to offer you?

I'm not against church, nor spirtuality, nor religion. What I cant stand is someone, to try and convince me, I'm too small to understand, I need THEM to show me my path, or all my God given desires are the devils work...nonsense.

If churchs didnt creat heaven and hell, whats to fear?
I believe in God. I dont believe in anything past that...I am a Deist.

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Originally Posted by JaggedEdge

It leads me to believe that the entire process was simply us being tired and mentally exausted while someone grabed our head tight restricting blood flow to our brains. I'm not sure if griping the skull in a tight manner could produce that effect, but the whole process has never led me to change my view on god.

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Nope. Unless they were also grabbing you around the throat, nothing about a tight grip on the skull should do anything for reducing blood flow to the brain. Though I imagine it could still get quite tedious after awhile...

Good for you for sharing your experience. More people need to do this.

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Originally Posted by Polymirize

Nope. Unless they were also grabbing you around the throat, nothing about a tight grip on the skull should do anything for reducing blood flow to the brain. Though I imagine it could still get quite tedious after awhile...

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prolonged pressure on the temples can cause death (talking hours) I would assume this has something to do with blood flow

The most important thing I think you said was â??the whole process has never led me to change my view on god.â?� I am glad to hear that. A lot of people take their experiences with religion (especially at a young age) and see or hear something that doesnâ??t sit right with them and than use those experiences to question or even totally abandon their faith.

In the Bible Jesus criticized the religious teachers of the day. He said you shall know a tree by its fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit and a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. I use those words when evaluating people I come into contact with.

I think what matters is your personal relationship with God. I choose to seek him out through scripture. I read a few pages of the Bible almost every night. I make notes in the margins of questions I have or things I want clarity on. I find Jesus to be funny, level headed, with a fiery sprit. All things I admire.

As for your experience. Iâ??m sure it was very real for you at the moment and who is to say that it was not genuine. I myself am distrustful of mainstream religious teachers. I think you should trust your own judgment and intuition about them on an individual basis. And remember that none of them speak directly for God.

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Originally Posted by RedLocks

prolonged pressure on the temples can cause death (talking hours) I would assume this has something to do with blood flow

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Can you back that up? Are there a lot of these incidents where people die from hours of having their temples squeezed?

Actually I have no idea where I heard this it was many years ago, 15+. I think it might have been used as a form of torture/execution, where they used a clamp that applied pressure to the temple (totally pulling that out of my ass).. ya gotta remember the temporal arteries are in the... temples, and any constriction of a artery causes some ill effect in one way or another. There is also some illness that causes the temporal arteries to become inflamed which I would assume causes some loss of blood flow, symptoms include vertigo and fatigue, all this coming from someone who's extent of medical knowledge come from watching ER and House :thumbsup: