It first happened when Ariel Laman was 12 — a spiritual experience she couldn`t explain.
Laman, who attended a Catholic church at the time, noticed something strange when the priest brought out the communion bread.
“It rose into the air by itself, and I fainted,” she said. Laman did not stick to the Catholic Church for long after graduating high school, but the experience stuck with her. Still seeking a connection to the divine, she delved into Shamanism and devoured books by Deepak Chopra and Qigong master Chunyi Lin. She focused more on her meditation and paid close attention to the symbolism in her dreams.
“When you know something is right, it resonates with you,” she said.
Laman isn`t the only one who draws from several traditions to find spiritual completion. Large numbers of Americans said they take part in multiple religious practices and meld together elements of different traditions such as Christian, New Age or Eastern beliefs.
In a recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 35 percent of those who go to services at least once a week and 59 percent of monthly or yearly churchgoers said they attend religious services at more than one place. Often, the places they visit are of diverse faiths.
On a recent Sunday, people gathered at SpiritKeepers Interfaith Fellowship, a group that meets weekly to perform spiritual dances and talk with guest speakers about varying topics such as the poetry of Rumi, healing meditation and social justice. The group makes a point to explore and discuss as many types of spiritual paths as possible.
Facilitators even ask participants to “find spiritual nourishment elsewhere” on the first Sunday of the month to bring back and share with the group the following week.
Moving in a circle, the group twirled and held hands during their weekly dance time. The dances are inspired by Dances of Universal Peace, an interfaith group formed in the 1960s by a Sufi teacher and a Rinzai Zen master.
Carolyn Hart was among those swaying in the slowly rotating circle.
She has been going to SpiritKeepers for three years.
Hart also grew up Catholic. Despite spending years in “heavily Catholic” colleges, she felt that the church wasn`t resonating with her over time.
Hart is a facilitator for Awakening the Dreamer, a social justice organization with spiritual elements. SpiritKeepers seemed in line with her love of community service and openness to other religions, so she started going regularly.
“They`re very enlightened people there, and very welcoming,” she said.
Many who take part in multiple faith traditions are looking for that moment of enlightenment or insight. Some might call it a “religious experience.”
According to the Pew study, more and more people are finding that experience. In 1962, only 22 percent of people said they had ever had a religious or mystical experience. Today, almost half the population has had a moment of sudden spiritual insight.
For Laman, it wasn`t just one “religious experience” that has steered her through life. In 2000, she was hit by a truck and sustained a brain injury that left her struggling to read or write. Though she was recovering slowly, she was still too injured to work. When piles of medical bills tipped her over the financial edge, she moved into her car.
Despite rough times, flashes of inspiration guided her to develop her own healing meditation techniques she now teaches to others.
Laman is back on her feet and out of her car. “I learned that poverty is not about how little money or resources a person has. It`s about how little faith a person has in the inner ability to manifest what they need,” she said.
Everyone today seems to want to see a mystical sign. Faith should be just that–faith. If you are the type not to believe the Lord’s word without seeing gold dust fall from the ceiling then you are leaving a foothold for satan to trick you. After a while, the Lord will allow you to believe the delusions.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
Proverbs 16:25 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Isaiah 2:6 You have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob. They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines and clasp hands with pagans.
Jeremiah 14:14 Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds.