Experiences of Spiritual Visitation and Impregnation: Potential Induction by Frequency-Modulated Transients from an Adjacent Clock

2001 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Persinger ◽  
S. A. Koren

A left-handed Roman Catholic female adolescent with a history of early brain trauma reported nightly visitations by a sentient being. During one episode she experienced vibrations of the bed, an external presence along the left side that moved into her body, inner vaginal (not clitoral) and uterine sensations, and the sense of being impregnated by a force she attributed to the Holy Spirit. After the latter experience she felt an invisible baby superimposed upon her left shoulder. Analyses of the measurements for magnetic anomalies within her bedroom indicated an electric clock about 20 cm from her head while she slept. The complex form of the 4 microT magnetic pulses generated by the clock was similar to shapes that evoke electrical seizures in epileptic rats and sensitive humans.

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-88
Author(s):  
Artur Antoni Kasprzak

Every story has its beginning. Most stories have their end. An attempt at a synthetic analysis of the history of the beginning of the Charismatic Renewal in the Roman Catholic Church turns out to be confronted with a  certain initial reality: not only does this history not have a specific beginning, but it also has no end. It is a story that is still open. In celebrating its fiftieth birthday in the Roman Catholic Church recently (2017), a symbolic experience was taken as the original reference date. The receipt of charisms by members of a small group of American students on 18 February 1967, in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) in the United States, is a date and place that is in a sense only symbolic. Neither that moment nor that event exhausts the vast and much broader charismatic experience of the Holy Spirit in the Church, which can be seen in various and numerous moments in the history of the Church. This study efforts to explain this singular experience from the perspective of analysing the essential elements of the first structuring of the Charismatic Renewal in the Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century. The study is also an attempt at a synthetic look at the history, but also at its authors, including Ralph Martin, Steve Clark, Gerry Rauch, Veronica O'Brien, Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens and Pope Paul VI.


2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-194
Author(s):  
C. Jason White

AbstractA major pursuit of biblical studies, especially since the dawn of the Enlightenment, has been to discover the one, intended, objective meaning of the various biblical texts. Over the last several hundred years, a plethora of methodological paradigms, biblical language and reference tools, historical studies, sociological analyses, comparative linguistic investigations, and anthropological and cultural examinations have all been published through many outlets by a host of people for the purpose of finding THE meaning the biblical authors wished to convey to their respective audiences. Although the results of all these works have positively contributed to our knowledge of scripture in profound ways, the problem is this: none can claim that they have actually discovered this one objective meaning. This is not to say, however, that there are not better understandings of scripture which point more adequately to the originally intended meaning, but simply that the best anyone can do is interpret scripture. The consequence of interpretation, though, is the relativity of meaning. In other words, there are several interpretations of scripture which can validly point to the intended meaning of the biblical authors and texts. One purpose of this article, then, will be to explore why it is not possible to find the one intended meaning of scripture, by defining some key concepts (e.g. tradition and presupposition) in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, who is one of the most influential names in the history of philosophical hermeneutics of the twentieth century, as interpreted by Merold Westphal.Some scriptural interpreters, especially evangelicals, are frightened by the idea that biblical meaning is relative because such a pluralistic approach can lead quickly to the demise of biblical infallibility and authority. A second major purpose of this article will be to help ease such fear by offering a biblically grounded theological justification for the interpretative plurality of scripture by looking at the relativity of meaning through the lens of the doctrine of the Trinity. This justification will suggest that the more we rely upon the Holy Spirit and act out our faith in God through Jesus Christ in and outside of the church, the better our interpretation of scripture will become.


1970 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. G. Dunn

Within Christianity down through the centuries there has always been a strain of teaching which holds that salvation, so far as it may be known in this life, is experienced in two stages: first the event of becoming a Christian; then, as a later and distinct event, some special and distinctive operation or gift of the Holy Spirit. In the history of Christian thought this disjointedness was first clearly formulated in the Catholic sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. According to A. J. Macdonald, the idea that Confirmation confers the gift of the Spirit was held without question until the time of Wyclif. And today in anglo-catholic tradition, although the episcopal laying on of hands is commonly thought of as bestowing a strengthening gift of the Spirit, some continue to speak as though the Spirit is first received at that time. Indeed, since the question was reopened by F. W. Puller in 1880, it has been regularly argued, often with great weight, though not infrequently with greater ingenuity, that far greater significance (in terms of the Spirit) should be attributed to Confirmation than to Baptism.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 175-193
Author(s):  
Jan Grzeszczak

Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202) – a Middle Age exegete and mystic – is the author of an impressive work on the vision of history, whose most renown ele­ment is the tertius status, i.e. the age of the Holy Spirit which precedes the end of the world and the Final Judgment. As an author, Joachim was also interested in the history of religious life in the Middle Ages and in various exegetical tools which he developed to analyze this subject. In his works, especially the minor ones, he also discusses practical problems related to religious life in the 12th century. The small tractate, Questio de Maria Magdalena et Maria sorore Lazari et Marthae, has been preserved in a single 13th century manuscript and is kept in the Biblioteca Antoniana in Padua. In his exegesis on various Gospel passages which deal with the anointing of Jesus’ feet and head in Galilee and Bethany, Joachim of Fiore intends to show that the actions of women who performed this gesture pos­sess a hidden moral significance: the certainty concerning the internal unity that occurs between contemplation and the virtue of humility. An example of this unity is Mary of Bethany who anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair (cf. Jn 12:3) as a person who is humble and – at the same time – given to contem­plation. Still – according to Joachim – as a righteous person, she had the right to reach for the head of the Savior.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Albina Bessonova

The history of the Dostoevsky estate Darovoe, which is an important period in the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky, still contains unresolved issues. The most ambiguous is the fate of the writer's father, who ended his days in Darovoe. The cause of the tragic death of M. A. Dostoevsky and the place of his burial are still controversial. The document from the State Archive of the Tula region, published for the first time, allows to dispel all doubts about the location of the grave of M. A. Dostoevsky. The article examines the history of the issue, including oral tradition, analyzes well-known documentary sources, and the entry in the metric book of the Holy Spirit Church of the village Monogarovо in 1839 confirms the testimony of A. M. Dostoevsky about the burial of his father in the churchyard. The fact of M. A. Dostoevsky's affair with the house serf Ekaterina Alexandrova is questioned, since it was based on rumors and undocumented. The author analyzes the oral tradition phenomenon and its influence on the formation of the image of M. A. Dostoevsky as a cruel landowner killed by peasants out of revenge. New archival documents allow us to revise the stereotypes that have become entrenched in Dostoevsky studies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredy Simanjuntak ◽  
Alexander Djuang Papay

The history of the church notes that to this day the Protestant Church is a family whose history is most often divided. Nevertheless the development is quite significant in the present. The process of developing the church resulted in various streams in the church such as Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical, Adventist, until Jehovah's Witnesses, in the course of the Pentecostal & Charismatic flow so fertile in today's growth. The flow of Pentecostalism and Charismaticism, in its origin and method, has a unique and phenomenal history in Indonesia. The uniqueness of Indonesia's spiritual context is illustrated by rapid growth. The Pentecostal and Charismatic movements felt their influence in various churches around us. Phenomena such as the ability to speak in tongues, healing, and prophecy and aspects of emotional experience that are so prominent in this movement make the public wonder, is it true that all of this is the work of the Holy Spirit? The purpose of this paper is to provide an observation of facts, spiritual life background, the meaning of faith, and understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit adopted by followers of the Pentecost-Charismatic Movement in the context of the challenges of contextualization and syncretism in the relationship between Pentecostal-Charismatic and Christian spirituality in Indonesia. In light of the significant regional diversity in Indonesian religious thought and experience, the scope of this research is limited to the idea of contextualization also limited to its use in the missiological context.


2021 ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
Александр Ермолин

На основании источников рассматривается написание протопресвитером Александром Шмеманом главной книги его жизни - «Евхаристия. Таинство Царства». Цель анализа - проследить изменение отдельных взглядов и суждений отца Александра и историю формирования финального текста его главного богословского труда. Для этого были проанализированы «Дневники» отца Александра и его публикации на страницах «Вестника Русского Студенческого Христианского Движения». Два эти источника (один личного, а другой открытого характера) позволили представить, как шла работа над текстом книги, как многие её аспекты переосмыслялись и переписывались практически до последних дней жизни автора. Многие мысли относительно Евхаристии были опубликованы отцом Александром в «Вестнике». С одной стороны, многие идеи в книге повторяются, например, понимание богословия через богослужение. С другой стороны, «Евхаристия» - это действительно главный труд жизни отца Александра, и в ней он переосмыслил многие аспекты своих взглядов. Одной из сложных глав, которую Шмеман переписывал неоднократно, стала глава «Таинство Святого Духа». Во многом это связано с попыткой автора рассмотреть проблему Востока и Запада, православия и католицизма на страницах данной главы. On the basis of the sources, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann writes the main book of his life - «The Eucharist. The Mystery of the Kingdom». The purpose of the analysis is to trace the change in individual views and judgments of Father Alexander and the history of the formation of the final text of his main theological work. For this, the «Diaries» of Father Alexander and his publications on the pages of the «Bulletin of the Russian Student Christian Movement» were analyzed. These two sources (one personal and the other open) made it possible to imagine how the work on the text of the book was going on, how many of its aspects were rethought and rewritten almost until the last days of the author’s life. Many thoughts on the Eucharist were published by Father Alexander in the «Bulletin». One of the difficult chapters, which Schmemann rewrote many times, was the chapter «The Sacrament of the Holy Spirit». This is largely due to the author’s attempt to consider the problem of East and West, Orthodoxy and Catholicism on the pages of this chapter.


Author(s):  
Lois Malcolm

Although often neglected in historical and theological studies of Martin Luther’s work, an understanding of the Holy Spirit undergirds his signal contributions to the history of theology and is essential to any case for his ongoing relevance to contemporary theology and practice. Drawing on biblical exegesis, Luther would reinvigorate the doctrine of the Holy Spirit he inherited from the Western theological tradition and from the Ancient Church. Nonetheless, he wrote in a variety of literary genres and in response to a range of issues. To address this linguistic and historical complexity, this article examines the role the concept of the Holy Spirit plays in his theology by providing readings of texts that have been influential on later appropriations of his work. In doing so, it focuses on two intertwined themes in his theology. First, it examines his understanding of the Holy Spirit in relation to justification—that is, the righteousness of God we receive as a gift by faith—looking at his early biblical theology and two especially influential texts, “The Freedom of a Christian” (1520) and his “Lectures on Galatians” (1535). Second, it discusses his portrayal of the Holy Spirit as sanctifier—that is, as the one who creates holiness or sanctification in us—in his most well-known catechisms, in the “Confession of 1528,” and in his “Lectures on Genesis” (1535) and “Sermons on John” (1537). Throughout, attention will also be given to his understanding of the Trinity, Word and sacraments, faith, hope, and love, and the themes of promise and gift. The article concludes with a sketch of historical work and a discussion of the influence of Luther’s pneumatology on later theology and current areas of research.


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