Mystical Experiencer: Man in his late forties
Submission date: February 12, 2023
Current location: United States
Age at time of experience: 46
I am in recovery and am a member of a few 12-step fellowships. Since entering them in 2013, I have routinely prayed and meditated, even though I did not necessarily believe there was something out there because that was what I learned to do. When I was 45, a close friend and mentor instructed me to seek guidance on a matter I was struggling with from the Universe by conducting an experiment: posing a question and requesting a sign if the answer to my question was a “yes”.
I did not think the experiment was likely to yield an answer, but I was open-minded and went along with it. I got an answer. I could not believe it. So, my mentor suggested I ask for a confirmatory sign. I did. And I got confirmation. This experience radically altered my view of things. It confirmed for me that there was a higher power.
Less than a year later, I went to rehab for drug addiction, and while at rehab, I made a practice of going out on to the mountain and meditating in silence. In the course of this practice, I had a sense that I was not alone. There was something with me, guiding me. I heard it and felt it in the cold, in the trees, and in the wind. That was my mystical experience, and I was radically altered in the remaining time in rehab.
Since then, I have had many experiences–signs, “coincidences”, messages, and the like–that I do not necessarily regard as “mystical” like the one I experienced on that mountain in February of 2021. But I know that there is something out there that is guiding me and others.
It is the truth and reality that many seekers have found since time immemorial and is the wellspring from which religions and many spiritual traditions have arisen, and my search for it continues to this day. I have successfully reproduced this experience often in my morning meditation and conscious contact with God on a number of occasions.