Extreme body shaking and trembling in religious settings. What causes them?

[Space]

@WellbeingSeeker It's totally possible for someone to inflict these kind of vibrations and shakes in someone else just from pure touch or even just being in the same room as them. I've literally seen this first hand with shaktipat teachers. I'm definitely open to that. 

However, what is quite strange and unusual is the amount of people which are affected. If it was like a handful of people in the room, 1 out of 10 or 20, it would be more understandable. But the fact that every single person they touch has the exact same type of vibrations and shaking makes me a little skeptical.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few people who are legitimately affected by the energy from the teacher, but then the rest of the audience are just getting caught up in the whole show and the overly dramatic and emotional surroundings. Maybe there's an element of unintentional hypnosis going on, I don't know. It's not that difficult to generate high emotional states in others and manipulate their beliefs if you know what you're doing.

[wwhy]

6 hours ago, WellbeingSeeker said:

@wwhy if we rule out external supernatural causes, the releasing of pent up energies such as stress and anxiety seems to me the most reasonable alternative explanation at the moment. What doesn't feel right about that explanation though is that, if people are experiencing involuntary tremors produced by their nervous systems in order to release stress/anxiety, you would expect to see their bodies trembling like when you are very very nervous (like people with stage-fright before presenting to an audience), right? However, in many videos the shaking doesn't follow this pattern at all.

For example in this video this girl is rather collapsing to the floor as if overwhelmed by something, and she begins to shake her hands uncontrollably but the rest of her body does not seem to be trembling that much. I don't think the flight-fight system in our brains sends signals to shake your hands like that.

Similarly in this video the preacher is prophesying to a girl, and then he says "[...] and the fire you are looking for [...]" and in reaction to that the girl begins to shake her left arm, but no uniform tremors over her whole body as you would expect in a fight-flight situation. Then the preacher blows on her forehead and the girl even cries and faints as if she was feeling overwhelmed by "something" the preacher blew over her.

And a couple more examples. In this video a dude starts trembling but then in a few moments he's shown crying in agony and dramatically wallowing on the floor, but he's not experiencing tremors anymore, so that doesn't look like a flight-fight response at all to me. Similarly here you see a girl shaking in a very weird fashion, I don't know about you but for me that doesn't look like fight-flight tremors at all.

Additionally, in many of these examples the reaction seems to be triggered by a preacher with an alleged high "spiritual status", so I think a natural explanation should incorporate an element of hypnosis or something to account for this somehow, so I don't think that flight-or-flight tremors is an adequate explanation that accounts for all the aspects and nuances of the phenomenon.

Some things are just random. One person cries with low hissing sounds, another wails like an ambulance. They are all still crying.

The fight and flight response is either a) running away or b) fighting. Shaking is something else, thought there can be a cause and effect connection.

Edited August 3, 2020 by wwhy

[wwhy]

5 hours ago, An young being said:

Either direct experience or some scientific proof might help. One thing that I can vouch for is that blind faith is the most dangerous thing in the world. 

Everything, including science boils down to blind faith at the core. Science just calls it "scientific axioms". Even direct experience still needs a mind to make meaning of it -- one person on 5meo will think they are dying, another will think they have remembered being God. Both are still lying on a mat somewhere, assigning different meanings to the same experience. We are meaning making machines, and like death, we cannot escape that.

[Kalki Avatar]

I would like to see if @Leo Gura has any explanation or knowledge about this. 

Actually, Ive always been curious with those religious tremblings.

I ve seen it happen in front of me when I used to go to the church my family goes and camps. You see people falling down unconscious as is something striked them. Also, speaking in tongues. 

The only conclusion I have till now is that these people are made to open themselves up by the pastor guidance and they are not prepared to handle all the crazyness that comes from the unconscious so they just react and believe it all, making their experience very random and crazy. Plus they might enter a trance state from the guidance. Depending of how low conscious the person is, they can attract and create beliefs/stories in a rapid way. For ex, if they are feeling like they are going to get unconscious, that might trigger their memory to interpet the situation as you are now going to speak in tongues and if such thought is believed, they might fall into it and start speaking like crazy in a genuine but deluded way. They might also invoke spirits. 

I have only seen once in my life a person been possesed and its a very unique experience. The voice really changes and they start doing crazy stuff. But, I dont know if anyone has ever experience or heard something like this. Well, my mom is a very religious person (christian). She told me that in one of their private sessions of prayer in a campament, a women started to go crazy. Her tonality changed into that of a man, saying the words "Shes mine! Im her owner!" She also told me her face became old, greenish and masculine and then the most fucked thing happened. She started levitating (Very much like the thumbnail in Leo's video "Cult Psychology) . I actually cannot disbelieve such thing, because my mom takes religion very serious and she feels God would punish her for lying. No idea how demonic possession works, but churches are definetively full of crazy shit. 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Kalki Avatar

[WellbeingSeeker]

On 8/3/2020 at 4:53 PM, Kalki Avatar said:

I have only seen once in my life a person been possesed and its a very unique experience. The voice really changes and they start doing crazy stuff. But, I dont know if anyone has ever experience or heard something like this. Well, my mom is a very religious person (christian). She told me that in one of their private sessions of prayer in a campament, a women started to go crazy. Her tonality changed into that of a man, saying the words "Shes mine! Im her owner!" She also told me her face became old, greenish and masculine and then the most fucked thing happened. She started levitating (Very much like the thumbnail in Leo's video "Cult Psychology) . I actually cannot disbelieve such thing, because my mom takes religion very serious and she feels God would punish her for lying. No idea how demonic possession works, but churches are definetively full of crazy shit. 

@Kalki Avatar I actually know two testimonies of people claiming to have been delivered from demonic possession with levitation included: this one and this one.

[WellbeingSeeker]

On 8/3/2020 at 4:30 PM, Space said:

@WellbeingSeeker It's totally possible for someone to inflict these kind of vibrations and shakes in someone else just from pure touch or even just being in the same room as them. I've literally seen this first hand with shaktipat teachers. I'm definitely open to that. 

However, what is quite strange and unusual is the amount of people which are affected. If it was like a handful of people in the room, 1 out of 10 or 20, it would be more understandable. But the fact that every single person they touch has the exact same type of vibrations and shaking makes me a little skeptical.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few people who are legitimately affected by the energy from the teacher, but then the rest of the audience are just getting caught up in the whole show and the overly dramatic and emotional surroundings. Maybe there's an element of unintentional hypnosis going on, I don't know. It's not that difficult to generate high emotional states in others and manipulate their beliefs if you know what you're doing.

@Space do you have some links to live recordings of shaktipat teachers causing people to shake? I would like to watch some to contrast the experience with that of western charismatic and pentecostal churches.

[WellbeingSeeker]

Oh wow, this video has just appeared in my recommendation feed and was uploaded just a few hours ago. Summary: a whole crowd in a Philippiness' shopping mall collapsing to the floor and many of them shaking like crazy O.o:

 

[An young being]

On 03/08/2020 at 9:09 PM, WellbeingSeeker said:

@An young being did he explain why he faked it? did the shaking look realistic as in the OP's videos?

@WellbeingSeeker No, it wasn't realistic at all. I can easily fake what he had done myself. I believe he wasn't able to keep his secret and wanted to badly share with somebody and told me the truth. But after that he realised his mistake and didn't offer any further explanation. What I assume is that the priests have paid him to make people fear God.

[An young being]

On 04/08/2020 at 2:21 AM, wwhy said:

Everything, including science boils down to blind faith at the core. Science just calls it "scientific axioms". Even direct experience still needs a mind to make meaning of it -- one person on 5meo will think they are dying, another will think they have remembered being God. Both are still lying on a mat somewhere, assigning different meanings to the same experience. We are meaning making machines, and like death, we cannot escape that.

Yes, nothing can be proved in the absolute sense by science. Direct experience is a better way than science to have faith in something because illusions and assumptions don't exist when it comes to direct experience. ( which can also be a belief ). In the end, it's the human mind making all sorts of interpretations on these things which can only relatively bring us closer to the truth. That's a far better feeling than knowing nothing at all. But that doesn't mean we need to believe whatever we see, whatever we hear, read etc. , that's the most dangerous thing, atleast comparatively. Religions are a good example for blind faith.

[Space]

2 hours ago, WellbeingSeeker said:

@Space do you have some links to live recordings of shaktipat teachers causing people to shake? I would like to watch some to contrast the experience with that of western charismatic and pentecostal churches.

There are a lot of videos of shaktipat teachers giving live shaktipat on Youtube but most of them seem really fake, like this: 

It's very rare for someone to be rolling around the floor and crying etc. Usuaully the kriyas that are generated from the shakti are more subtle. Atleast in my experience. The best example (from a quick search I did) of what seems like legitimate spontaneous kiryas is the below video. The aren't from a shaktipat teacher but this is what they look like - subtle shaking and vibrations without all the hysteria and unnecessary emotional reactions.

 

[SgtPepper]

Unfortunately you are not going to find any valid scientific explanations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_psychotherapy. You may find this information interesting and relevant if you are open to having an experience of release yourself. 

[WellbeingSeeker]

More examples of weird body shaking, this time in a Hindu context:

 

[WellbeingSeeker]

And Muslims also have their fair share of weird manifestations :

 

[Nahm]

On 8/3/2020 at 4:11 PM, wwhy said:

You are kidding yourself if you believe you felt complelled to write out this very long response because... nothing

 

 

If you can find it in yourself to tolerate a question without all the accusations....what compels you to write responses? Perhaps a minute or two of inspection & contemplation. Maybe you do find a ‘thing’. ?‍♂️

[WellbeingSeeker]

Hello people. Just two updates:

1) I found two new astonishing examples:

2) A very reputable user of Psychology & Neuroscience StackExchange posted a very complete answer to my question, check it out: https://psychology.stackexchange.com/a/25800/25376

[WellbeingSeeker]

Hi people. Please check out this video:

This video uploaded a few days ago compares and identifies interesting similarities between manifestations that have occurred in the Toronto Blessing, current Charismatic sects and Hindu Shaktipat. The uploader is Christian, so there is an evident bias to label these manifestations as demonic, but subjective interpretations aside, the similarities identified in the video might be worth considering. Maybe there is an underlying common phenomenon going on that can explain these similarities? Please, feel free to share your thoughts.

[wwhy]

On 8/5/2020 at 4:39 PM, An young being said:

Yes, nothing can be proved in the absolute sense by science. Direct experience is a better way than science to have faith in something because illusions and assumptions don't exist when it comes to direct experience. ( which can also be a belief ). In the end, it's the human mind making all sorts of interpretations on these things which can only relatively bring us closer to the truth. That's a far better feeling than knowing nothing at all. But that doesn't mean we need to believe whatever we see, whatever we hear, read etc. , that's the most dangerous thing, atleast comparatively. Religions are a good example for blind faith.

Science is direct experience.

Predictable, measurable, independently repeatable experience.

[WellbeingSeeker]

Is there any scientific explanation for this :0000000 ???

 

[daemons]

On 7/31/2020 at 11:52 AM, Jay Ray said:

any urge to move or to talk or to do anything non-voilent is OK and I accept it fully. I will let the urge to move or dance or whatever, do what it wants to do if it is safe.    "

Interesting story Jay Ray. It makes me think of people that are hypnotized. They are moving and doing things but it's not "them" doing it. I am new here and just reading and learning from everyone's stories.

[WellbeingSeeker]

@Alternest  Hypnosis is the 7th hypothesis proposed in this answer, but unfortunately the same answer dismisses it as very unlikely. By the way, I'm having a super interesting discussion with the author of the answer here: https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/112139/discussion-between-tony-mobbs-and-spirit-realm-investigator. The guy is a reputable member of Psychology & Neuroscience StackExchange and he got so intrigued with the subject matter that he's planning on publishing a paper on it.

Edited August 24, 2020 by WellbeingSeeker