Direct revelation

"Have you ever felt that what you said or wrote was guided by some force other than your own?" Absolutely. (A disclaimer that I don't *know* whether whether what I receive is from God, but it sure as heck sounds like the type of godly inspiration that Christians talk about.) As you know, I hang out with the Quakers; they believe deeply in direct revelation to the individual, though they think that it is best practiced within a faith community that can serve as a check on the person's understanding (they don't want David Koreshes springing up). I've never been to a charismatic church, but I gather that they hold similar beliefs. I've met many people who tell me, "That's not God, that's your subconscious." Perhaps it is, but there's no way of telling what's guiding the subconscious, is there? If one believes in the Holy Spirit, one has to assume that he/she has access to the subconscious. (No, dear, I'm not becoming modernist in my language about God; the above is a nod to the Eastern Orthodox tradition of referring to the Holy Spirit in feminine terms.) As to what God sounds like? Well, I think it depends on the individuals, and one would suppose that this would change from era to era, because we not only have to consider what method of communication God would prefer, but what method of communication any given human would understand. In an era which held simple notions about God (such as produced that lovely passage in Genesis about God walking in the Garden of Eden), I expect that people would primarily receive messages from God through old-fashioned speech. In our era, which is highly skeptical of direct revelation, it's more likely that God would speak in a subtle fashion, as in the example you cite. Myself, I receive inspiration primarily in two manners: through my fiction-writing and through my dreams - the latter makes me *very* unpopular with orthodox types who have forgotten how much dream imagery exists in the Bible, and have also forgotten (or never known) how often the Church Fathers recommended dreaming as a way to connect with God. I've looked for similar references in Christian writings to inspirational authorship (other than the Bible), but have yet to find them, alas - I think this is because the Church for so many centuries had the notion of a hard divide between secular and sacred, so that the religious arts were considered inspired while the secular arts somehow produced themselves without God's help. The secular authors seem to have thought otherwise. :) If you're interested in this topic, you might want to check out the books of Morton Kelsey, an Episcopal priest who has written a whole slew of books on the connection between modern psychological studies and Church traditions of direct revelation (see the link below). This is one of those topics which, alas, the modern Church has sadly neglected, giving the Eastern and occult traditions the opportunity to make converts. Yet it's quite central to early Christian tradition. Heather [E-mail]   [Home Page] Amazon.com: Morton Kelsey