How do you interpet your spiritual experiences in Mormonism?

That’s a hard one. The few I experienced mostly happened under similar circumstances that were probably elevated emotion.
Large group, testimony meeting kind of things.

However I had one that I think was me hyping my own emotional state up. That one was the catalyst for serving a mission.

ashmonster2000

I had written down my most important spiritual experiences on my mission. With this new knowledge of elevation emotion & frisson, and the knowledge I gained from studying Church history the previous 4 years, I used my critical thinking skills & evaluated my most influential spiritual experiences.

I was shocked & horrified to see that my spiritual experiences were not at all what I believed & had been taught in the Church. Almost all of my significant spiritual experiences were easily explained by elevation emotion, frisson, confirmation bias, & other things that had nothing to do with God, or the Spirit teaching me the truth. In short, my so-called spiritual experiences had betrayed me. As Anthony Miller said in his TEDx talk, my treasured spiritual experiences had confirmed the truthfulness of many things that were false or only partially true (youtube.com/…).

I also learned that my so-called spiritual experiences were not unique: to me or Mormonism. I learned this when I watched this YouTube video: youtube.com/…. Most people have the same so-called spiritual experiences about their religion that I had experienced with Mormonism. Most people believe that God has told them that their church is true & that God called them to join it.

ceyre