A staunch skeptic undergoes a profound Experience
20s male, Pole, traveler, no specific complaints.
"I didn’t believe any of it. The theories about multiple worlds or hidden orders sounded like talk. I’ve traveled in Mexico; I thought I knew how this worked - that you needed substances, mushrooms, something 'extra' to reach these states.
A garden with just plants? No machines? It seemed impossible. But I came back. I decided to see for myself.
[He begins to smile, a deep, genuine expression that seems to radiate from within]. I was just... happy. I was smiling and crying, and laughing all at once. [He brings his hands close to his face, mimicking the wiping of tears and the stretching of a wide grin]. It was such an amazing feeling.
I felt connected to myself. [He opens his hands wide and then brings them together firmly, as if snapping two powerful magnets into place]. For the first time, these separate parts of me became one. And then, I saw the light. It fell over exactly half of my body. [He uses his left hand to slice the air down his midline, indicating the left side]. A white-yellowish light. It didn't just shine on me; it entered me. [He points his fingertips toward his chest]. I became one with that light. [He clasps his hands together tightly, knuckles white with the intensity of the union].
[His hands begin to move in fluid, swirling motions around his torso]. I felt so many energies around me, moving, flowing. But I stayed focused here. [He moves a single hand in a straight line from his throat to his waist]. In my body. In my soul. In my self.
I realized... there is a tornado around us. The whole world is a tornado. [His hands move in rapid, whirlwind gestures, tracing the chaos of the environment]. But I... I am in the center of the tornado. [He holds his hand out, fingertips pinched together to a single, unmoving point of stillness]. In the middle of it all,
there is always peace." [He breaks into a calm, knowing laughter].
As a self-identified skeptic with no expectation of benefit, this participant's profound experience - including the tornado/center-of-storm metaphor and light immersion - cannot be attributed to positive expectancy.