I have written a brief autobiography where I touched on this, but I thought I would say a few more words about it since it’s interesting to me.
When I was fifteen, there was a spontaneous shift into a simple duality of observer and observed. I found myself as what observed this human self and the wider world. It was a very uncomfortable experience, I thought something was seriously wrong, and I went to several specialists. This happened along with the onset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) which made it extra confusing.
One year later, I walked down a gravel road at night and there was an equally spontaneous shift into oneness. The divine woke up to itself as everything without exception. The divine had just temporarily taken itself to fundamentally be this human self. All it was happening within and as the divine.
I haven’t written so much about what happened during that year, and I don’t remember all the details anymore. But I am able to reconstruct it to some extent.
Before this happened, I was an angsty and nerdy teenager with a deep fascination for literature, science, music, nature, ecology, and more.
During this year, something shifted in me. I got more interested in spirituality and started reading whatever I could find at the local library. I was profoundly influenced by Fritjof Capra and “Bak tid og rom” by Erik Damman. I suspect this is also when I started reading Rudolf Steiner and other influences on western spirituality.
I had been an atheist since elementary school, although I did always have an interest in parapsychology. I read several books on the topic, especially scientific studies that hint at a reality outside of how it’s depicted in current mainstream science. I even did several experiments at home, including with the classic telepathy cards. (The results were often well above random although I don’t have the numbers here to check them with proper statistics…!)
Why did this shift into an interest in spirituality? I imagine it is because of this observer-observed shift. I found myself as consciousness, and although the world seemed infinitely distant, it also happened within and as the consciousness I am.
If I remember correctly, it was also during this year that I started seeing energies, first around the leaves of the trees I was sitting under while reading.
And I continued to be an angsty nerdy teenager for another few years. My nerdiness just took a slightly different form.