“The gift of the Holy Spirit adapts itself to all these organs or attributes. It quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affections; and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates and matures all the fine toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness and charity. It develops beauty of person, form and features. It tends to health, vigour, animation and social feeling. It develops and invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens, invigorates, and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being [1]. It often starts behind the sternum, the heat and the light; sometimes across the shoulders or atop the crown of the head, but usually right there in the center of the chest. Burning. A fist-sized circle glows orange and red and then bursts into flame, like a gas burner igniting in slow motion. Then comes the steady expansion throughout my torso, gas burner on high, orange flames topping the blue, licking my shoulders. The sensation comes in waves, wide as the curves which chart the deepest sound, broad enough to feel the peaks and troughs as they pass. In Eastern art, the lotus flower blooms red-orange squarely above the seeker’s heart. Enlightenment. And this is how it begins–a gentle blossoming, stable enough to remain through time and space. But when the petals combust they cannot last, only for minutes at a time (lest the heat utterly consume?)–long minutes, though, and sometimes many strung together. The fire clings when I walk, but fades more quickly with movement; in stillness, it remains for as long as it will. The heat from above and behind feels weaker at first, thinner, originating beyond me instead of within, sometimes topping the joints like electric hands gripping my shoulders; sometimes centering at the top of the spine, sometimes traveling its length. The mantle spreads, sunlight on a turned back. At full strength it fills the limbs and digits and dissolves the membrane enclosing the self, granting deliverance for a few bright moments, a token of things to come. And every now and then, the heat touches the head first, as if unseen hands are pressing my scalp. As it burns white, I wonder who, or what, is standing behind me, and whether its feet touch the ground [2].”
[1] Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855), 98-99
[2] Kathryn Lynard Soper, “Holy Spirit,” Exponent II 31, No. 2 (Fall, 2011), 31.
Jacob
