The Mystical Experience That Changed My Life

Encountering the Unknown

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Photo by Matt Sclarandis on Unsplash

I was on a mountain, deep in the woods, when, without warning, I had a mystical experience. I was rucking in a national forest, listening to music on my AirPods, and enjoying the vast solitude of the Appalachian wilderness when I passed through an invisible threshold, and everything changed.

Something inside of me, unbidden, and as urgent and loud as a thunderclap, said STOP.

This voice, though internal, was as real as any voice I have ever heard. I didn't feel it in my head, but in my chest. I obeyed it as automatically and naturally as a child obeys the stern voice of a mother.

I stopped, and then something indescribable happened. The forest transformed on some fundamental, though invisible, level. Everything became sublimely beautiful. It was as if the whole world became a stained-glass window, and a blinding light from some outer place was shining through. Everything was alive — vividly, overwhelmingly alive. The trees, the moss, the rocks, the earth, the mountains in the distance transfigured and throbbed with sentience. I was no longer in an earthly forest; I had crossed a threshold into a hidden temple imbued with sacredness and otherworldly beauty.

I was in awe. I knew, as truly as I knew I was alive and breathing and that my name is Stephen, that I was in the presence of something holy, mighty, and altogether alien.

And then, the voice said, KNEEL.

Again, I obeyed.