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

[lmfao]

Two things.
1) People get mystical experiences through religion and prayer.

2) A lot of these people probably have ideas about how spiritual experiences are supposed to look like. They see someone else wiggling on the floor and shaking, so then they subconsciously imitate it in a hypnotic trance. 

Your question seems to be asking about the empirical science of this all. Psychologists and modern science on this forums will illuminate nothing meaningful about any of this.

Mystical experiences are a phenomena everyone can experience. And if you accept religion is a vehicle for spirituality, the rest follows.

I do think it's likely a lot of these people are in a hypnotic trance like I said in my 2nd point. 

---------------------
Much better than the answer I wrote is to vibe with this little girl to feel 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/tvshowbiz/video-1859430/Video-original-viral-video-girl-praying-used-Kanye-West.html

HALLELUJAH GOD. WE DON'T WANT NO DEVILS IN THE HOUSE GOD. WE WANT THE LORD. 

Edited August 2, 2020 by lmfao

[wwhy]

I would not classify spontaneous shaking as a mystical religious experience in of itself.

Its religious, but there is no mystery about it. Just like someone breaking down into tears when being prayed for.. it a religious experience, but there is nothing mysterious about crying.

[WellbeingSeeker]

3 hours ago, Aaron p said:

It's not unheard of to find natural urges to shake when you smoke [or plug] some 5meo. Vibration. Put it like this, those guys can definitely control the shaking of their body's. I think it's just group think and imitation 

@Aaron p I agree that some cases of shaking and trembling could probably be explained with behavioral imitation, i.e. some people see others shaking and they want to experience the same or feel part of the group and so they start imitating and eventually might learn to fake it quite easily. For example I'm pretty sure a good percentage of the crowds here, here and here is voluntarily doing the shaking (i.e. faking it). However, there are other cases in which I find it really hard to believe that "group think and imitation" is a valid explanation. Let me show some examples:

• This guy has a mind blowing testimony. He was an atheist. He entered a church to debate with believers about the existence of God, he then challenged a woman to pray for him and out of nowhere he began to shake uncontrollably (the guy actually ended up converting, the full testimony is astonishing). I even talked to the guy in the video's comment section and he told me that he didn't know about anything of the things that happened to him, everything was 100% unexpected. There is no way this is "group think and imitation".
• This woman testifies about feeling electricity all through her body. She's even crying when she talks about her experience. So she clearly experienced something that she describes as electricity, she is even crying about it, so there is no way she is faking it to imitate others.
• This lady explicitly claims that her tremors are caused by "the glory of God", i.e. that they are completely involuntary. She's not doing it to imitate someone else or fit in the group, because according to her testimony she began to have these experiences the first week of the Brownsville Revival and they would take place when the "presence of God" allegedly would come over her.
• In this video several young people come forward to testify about their experience. Some of them are even crying, so there is no way they are intentionally faking it. If they are testifying about their experience and even getting emotional about it, then they had to have a genuine experience, they are not faking it.
• This girl went up to the altar to get prayed for healing of her feet (she had pain in her feet). Unexpectedly she ended up feeling overwhelmed by "God's anointing" (according to the preacher), collapsed to the floor and began to shake and cry uncontrollably and very dramatically so. Later on in the video they picked her up to try to talk to her but she was still sobbing and in a few moments she started shaking and collapsed once again. The whole scene is so dramatic and well performed, that ... it just can't be fake, it has to be genuine. She's the only one being prayed for in the altar at that moment, everyone is silently paying attention to her, so this is not a case of mass hysteria, there is no one else to imitate, so for me everything points to this being a genuine case.
• Here you have a little girl trembling and fainting in response to the preacher's command. This girl looks very sincere to me. The fact that she is just a little girl and the sincerity in her facial expression make strongly believe that she's having a genuine experience. She's not faking it in order to imitate someone else.
• People here and here are experiencing shaking, trembling and fainting. Judging by their body language and facial expressions, I feel persuaded to believe that most of them (if not all) are having a genuine experience, they are not faking it.

3 hours ago, wwhy said:

It is the body's way of releasing pent up, usually negative energy. All animals do it, humans kind of forgot how.

@wwhy the hypothesis that these people are releasing pent up negative energy / traumas seems interesting. Do you know if this has been scientifically researched in humans? Is this the same shaking that happens in the fight or flight response or a shaking of a different kind (i.e. controlled by a different brain subsystem) ?

Edited August 3, 2020 by WellbeingSeeker

[wwhy]

2 hours ago, WellbeingSeeker said:

 

 the hypothesis that these people are releasing pent up negative energy / traumas seems interesting. Do you know if this has been scientifically researched in humans? Is this the same shaking that happens in the fight or flight response or a shaking of a different kind (i.e. controlled by a different brain subsystem) ?

For the science of it look mostly into the science of stress and anxiety, though the usual scientific remedy would be some kind of pharmaceutical pill rather than the more natural and remedies like breathing, meditation or just "shaking it off". I've listened to quite a few guided meditation videos and just one of them, for some unknown reason gave me the shakes the first few times I listened to it. I've no doubt meaningful spiritual experiences can trigger the same reaction.

The flight or fight response releases a ton of stored up emergency energy into the body to enable the fighting or flighting. With animals, once the danger is no longer present and they still have a bit of that energy left they shake like that polar bear to get rid of all of it and move on. With humans, many of our dangers are usually smaller, social everyday situations (like public ridicule, arguments) that don't really warrant physical running away or fighting, so that anxious energy just stays and builds up over time.

Edited August 3, 2020 by wwhy

[Nahm]

6 hours ago, wwhy said:

It is the body's way of releasing pent up, usually negative energy. All animals do it, humans kind of forgot how.

It’s satisfying. Useful as well. There’s no such thing as negative energy. That’s self judgment of nothing. It’s not humans forgetting, it’s love. 

6 hours ago, wwhy said:

This is like the new age version of the saved christian who responds to every question and discussion with "Pray to Jesus! Hallelujah!"

Not your idea of love, it’s just, love. 

[wwhy]

8 minutes ago, Nahm said:

It’s satisfying. Useful as well. There’s no such thing as negative energy. That’s self judgment of nothing. It’s not humans forgetting, it’s love. 

Not your idea of love, it’s just, love. 

That's just like... your opinion dude.

The only one you seem to have. Won't even bother addressing it directly.

[Loving Radiance]

I tend to shake in a small unvoluntary way when meditating and connecting to & receiving a message from my "higher self".

[allislove]

@WellbeingSeeker

Scientific explanation? Are you kidding?

I've experienced shaking with 5-MeO. I've seen how a person was shaking in ecstatic dance settings.

There is an infinite amount of state of consciousness. Imagine, some of the states look like this: body shaking like a wave.
What causes them? Nothing

Ultimately speaking, you are everyone and everything, nothing, Love. You can take a placebo and experience a similar state like on drugs. It doesn't matter what you do, since it's all you. You can use a drug, dance, go to religious settings, etc. Ultimately speaking, the only trigger for any state is you, since any state is you, since it's all you.

Well, I don't know what was "external" influence for those people experienced shaking in religious settings. External in quotes since there is no external at all but imagine there is, for the sake of trying to put words on nothing. So, the "external" trigger in my case was 5-MeO, in the case of the guy dancing - music/dancing, in religious settings - religious teacher/praying/etc. I'd keep an open mind that spiritual transmission is the thing, so maybe that was the "trigger" in religious settings. Trigger in quotes, since ultimately speaking the only trigger here is you. You create your own reality.


 

[Nahm]

@wwhy ?

[Seed]

This happens to me during sound bath meditations and breathwork. It’s the body going into a deeply energetic state. 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Seed

[Madhur]

On 21/07/2020 at 0:17 PM, Madhur said:

Idk if it's real or fake but this type of tradition is widely spread over in indian villages (mostly backward class and Orthodox), where the locals explain it that this happens when some particular goddess enters into a human body.

I think that the music playing in the back stimulate some sort of trance state cuz it some what sounds like shamanic drum music. And this is called "mata aana" in hindi language just in case if you want to see more videos on yt.

Let me know what you think about it.

I guess This is typical indian version of it, it is somewhat similar to what westerns experience but it is much more scarier(they perform dangerous stunts), what do you guys think of it ?

[WellbeingSeeker]

4 hours ago, allislove said:

Well, I don't know what was "external" influence for those people experienced shaking in religious settings. External in quotes since there is no external at all but imagine there is, for the sake of trying to put words on nothing. So, the "external" trigger in my case was 5-MeO, in the case of the guy dancing - music/dancing, in religious settings - religious teacher/praying/etc. I'd keep an open mind that spiritual transmission is the thing, so maybe that was the "trigger" in religious settings. Trigger in quotes, since ultimately speaking the only trigger here is you. You create your own reality.

@allislove If you are completely sure that there are no external supernatural causes, would you mind posting an answer at skeptics.SE?

Edited August 3, 2020 by WellbeingSeeker

[WellbeingSeeker]

1 hour ago, Seed said:

This happens to me during sound bath meditations and breathwork. It’s the body going into a deeply energetic state. 

@Seed thanks for sharing your experience. Do you happen to have live recordings of this (either yourself or someone else experiencing something similar)?

Edited August 3, 2020 by WellbeingSeeker

[Seed]

No I don’t... sorry 

[allislove]

57 minutes ago, WellbeingSeeker said:

@allislove If you are completely sure that there are no external supernatural causes, would you mind posting an answer at skeptics.SE?

Nothing is external, everything is supernatural.
I don't think "I am God" response is going to be useful for skeptics community ?
Would you mind doing the spiritual practices to see it for yourself?

[WellbeingSeeker]

10 hours ago, wwhy said:

For the science of it look mostly into the science of stress and anxiety, though the usual scientific remedy would be some kind of pharmaceutical pill rather than the more natural and remedies like breathing, meditation or just "shaking it off". I've listened to quite a few guided meditation videos and just one of them, for some unknown reason gave me the shakes the first few times I listened to it. I've no doubt meaningful spiritual experiences can trigger the same reaction.

The flight or fight response releases a ton of stored up emergency energy into the body to enable the fighting or flighting. With animals, once the danger is no longer present and they still have a bit of that energy left they shake like that polar bear to get rid of all of it and move on. With humans, many of our dangers are usually smaller, social everyday situations (like public ridicule, arguments) that don't really warrant physical running away or fighting, so that anxious energy just stays and builds up over time.

@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.

Edited August 3, 2020 by WellbeingSeeker

[An young being]

I had personally asked a guy who was trembling because of God entering him. He confessed that it was all set up. Truth and lies are so mixed up nowadays such that it's impossible to distinguish between them. 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. 

[WellbeingSeeker]

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

[wwhy]

11 hours ago, allislove said:

@WellbeingSeeker

Scientific explanation? Are you kidding?

I've experienced shaking with 5-MeO. I've seen how a person was shaking in ecstatic dance settings.

There is an infinite amount of state of consciousness. Imagine, some of the states look like this: body shaking like a wave.
What causes them? Nothing

Ultimately speaking, you are everyone and everything, nothing, Love. You can take a placebo and experience a similar state like on drugs. It doesn't matter what you do, since it's all you. You can use a drug, dance, go to religious settings, etc. Ultimately speaking, the only trigger for any state is you, since any state is you, since it's all you.

Well, I don't know what was "external" influence for those people experienced shaking in religious settings. External in quotes since there is no external at all but imagine there is, for the sake of trying to put words on nothing. So, the "external" trigger in my case was 5-MeO, in the case of the guy dancing - music/dancing, in religious settings - religious teacher/praying/etc. I'd keep an open mind that spiritual transmission is the thing, so maybe that was the "trigger" in religious settings. Trigger in quotes, since ultimately speaking the only trigger here is you. You create your own reality.


 

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

 

[allislove]

@wwhy ?