> Don's experience is certainly worthy of thought, but I've seen enough demonstrations of hypnotism and read enough about spiritual practices such as Voodoo and Shamanism to know that Chrstianity by no means has an exclusive claim to spiritual occurances such as this. To me, if this proves anything other than "people are impressionable and the power of suggestion is indeed powerful" (and my first thought on the matter is that it does not) then all it shows is that there *is* something unexplained going on, not that it necessarily proves that the Holy Ghost is working through Don and his churchmates.

Since this is all the reply I have received to my post in the last day, I'll use it as the jumping-off point for my next set of statements.

When I finished typing my post last night, I posted it, read a few more posts, and went to bed. After I had left my computer, I thought of quite a few things that I should have said and didn't, and your objections raised here are addressed by some of these things.

I guess I'll start by going through the logical sequence that I intended to be the framework for what I was saying last night. I'll start by listing my premises.

1. When there is prayer and laying on of hands at my church, people react physically in a particular way.
2. Elvis had not had any prior contact with charismatic Christians.
3. No prior knowledge of one another existed between (Elvis) and (myself or any other people involved). (Parentheses for clarity.)
4. No actions were undertaken by anyone in the group that were not apparent to myself.

Premise 1 is indisputible, assuming that I am a trustworthy eyewitness. Premise 2 is based on the actions and attitudes of Elvis on the evening in question; I am confident that it is true. Premise 3 is built upon the character of the other people involved; I know all of them well enough to be confident that they would be no more likely to deceive me in this matter than I would be to deceive them, and I would never deceive them in a matter like this under any circumstances. Premise 4 is based on my prior experience with these people in similar situations, and also depends on the character of these people. I suppose that technically, 3 necessary if 2 is true, but I will leave them both in.

If we accept 2 as true, then I propose that Elvis would not have any natural way to know about the reactions described in 1. This is arguable, and I am willing to argue it if necessary; I just don't want to take the time unless someone wants to raise issue with it.

If we accept 4 as true, then I can state with certainty that no form of suggestion, hypnosis, or impression was a part of the events in question. Again, arguable, if you really want to bring it up.

Based on these premises, there is no natural way for Elvis to have known to react in the way that he did. If you think I have overlooked a natural mechanism for this, please let me know.

At this point, we are led to a supernatural conclusion. Now we get to the question of the source of this supernatural force; as you have said, Christianity does not have an exclusive claim to this sort of spiritual occurance.

By induction, I can say that if this one instance was a genuine supernatural event, then many or all of my other experiences, which share common characteristics with this one, are very likely to have been caused by supernatural forces as well. The common thread between all of these experiences, though, is the Bible. It is the teachings in the Bible that lead the people at my church to pray in this way and believe as they do. The results of these prayers match up with the results predicted by the Bible. I propose, then, that the source of this power is the one described in the Bible; it serves as a manual, directing Christians in what to do and what results to expect, and why these things happen.

This next point seems to me to be a bit of a tangent, but I'll spit it out anyway. You mentioned the other powers and forces that have been observed in this world and appear to have supernatural causes, and I say that these are be explained within the framework of the Bible as well. Essentially, the Bible predicts all things related to the supernatural, and if you accept my premises listed above, the predictions therein are born out in practice.

Well, I just got distracted by two phone calls, so I've lost my train of thought. I think I have said most of what I wanted to say, but at the same time, I realize that I have opened up a lot of potential debate here. I'm game if you are (and this applies to anyone, not just Dave, of course).

Don Monkey