the Spirit

I remember the first time I felt one of my prayers was answered. How old was I? After baptism, but still a pre-teen. I had just learned to really love reading novels, and I picked one up from my parents' library. It was a Tony Hillerman book, a murder mystery. The first scene--a description of the mangled victim of a murder--scared the shit out of me.

Of course, that's what the author wanted; it was a thriller, after all. I felt that thrill of horror, and wanted to get rid of it, because it didn't feel like the Spirit. As I lay in my bed, trying to get rid of that feeling, I remembered what I'd learned in church--I could say a prayer when I was scared and Heavenly Father would help me feel better. So I prayed. I struck a deal with God, in fact. "If you help me feel better right now, I'll never pick up that book again."

I wave of comfort flowed over my body. I felt Heavenly Father had answered my prayer. I never picked up that book again, though I was tempted a couple times. It was not the last time I felt the "Spirit." I felt the Spirit many, many times, almost always in the form of feelings--comfort or discomfort--and occasionally in a "still small voice," or an image in my mind.

In my upbringing, the Spirit (aka the Holy Ghost) was one of the most important aspects of the gospel, of spirituality, of religion. It was humankind's connection with the Divine, which Mormons define as Heavenly Father. But it was more. It was also our personal moral compass, our guidance, our conscience. To me, my conscience was the Spirit, the Spirit was my conscience; I didn't have a moral compass or conscience outside the Spirit. I thought the Spirit was guiding me daily, or could guide me daily, as long as I listened--and stayed worthy of His presence. If you offended the Spirit, by not listening, making poor choices, or not creating an mind and environment conducive to the Spirit's presence, then you didn't have the benefit of the Spirit's guidance. And you would make more bad choices, keeping the Spirit away longer, leading to more bad choices, and then you're on your spiral staircase to hell.

Mormonism taught me to give the Spirit top authority. He being a direct conduit to God and all. What you learn from books, from people, from logic, should all be trumped by feelings sent by the Spirit.

You can imagine the extent to which this can go. A couple examples from my life:

High school history teacher tells you that Native Americans came from Asia? Archaeological, linguistic, and genetic evidence, and plain old common sense back it up? Well, you've prayed about the Book of Mormon, haven't you? The Spirit told you it's true, didn't He? Don't you think the Spirit would know better than some PhD researchers? So we know Native Americans are from Jerusalem, because we prayed and had a feeling about it.

I didn't seek physical therapy for a broken ankle because I'd had a priesthood blessing that said I'd be healed completely. The Spirit told him to say it, so I believed it. When the ankle continued to give me trouble, I didn't doubt the Spirit. The blessing didn't say when it would be completely healed, I reasoned. Maybe surgery was necessary for complete healing, but God wanted me to figure that out on my own. So I had follow-up surgery, then physical therapy. And the ankle still bothered me, but I still didn't question the blessing. Maybe Heavenly Father meant for me to go through physical therapy, and I messed up by not going, so He was out of his end of the promise. (The ankle still bothers me every few months; I have since given up on the blessing's promise.)

The Spirit was so much a part of my life that I didn't so much feel the Spirit from time to time as I did feel the absence of the Spirit from time to time.

I now believe the Spirit is nothing but a construct, a piece of social imagination and a way of interpreting feelings and conviction. But it took quite a bit of second-guessing, reinterpreting, wondering-if-I-was-crazy, thinking, and reevaluating to get from point A to point B. Oh, and don't forget the guilt, since denying the Holy Ghost is the worst sin. Ever. Worse than murder. (Hello?)

I'll try to explain that process of exorcising the Holy Ghost from my life in another post.