As I add new translations to the BHT, I thought it would be good to also publish a blog post noting each specific addition, so that readers may get those updates. The following is a translation today of 2 Peter 1:19-21, which concerns the scriptures and prophetic revelation and interpretation of the Word.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a Bengali author, poet, essayist, playwright, novelist, composer, and painter. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, the first non-European to do so. He recounted the following experience that he had while in Calcutta, India.
Morgan Freeman recently recounted a personal experience he once had many years ago that recalls Joseph Smith's First Vision. This was part of an episode of National Geographic's television documentary series The Story of God.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Catholic writer, theologian, Trappist monk, and mystic. The following is from his book New Seeds of Contemplation, describing his experiences in contemplation...
I shared this account in my introductory paper about mysticism, but I think it should be shared as a stand-alone post as well. This is because it is so stunningly similar in many respects to Joseph Smith's accounts of the First Vision.
Bill Wilson, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), had a spiritual awakening that involved bright light, sometimes referred to as his “hot flash” or “white light transformation.”
When the false self dies—the ego, the old creature, the constructed personality, the illusory self, the separate independent idea of one's self, the man of sin, the son of perdition, the natural man, the carnal mind—when this is seen for what it really is, when it is revealed in truth, when it is put off, taken out of the way, when it is crucified and passes away, then the true Self is revealed in glory.
Jason Silva is a kind of wild and passionate philosopher, futurist, speaker, and TV host. He has a lot of interesting things to say. In the below video he freestyles his way through talking about how we are simultaneously gods and worms, Tolstoy, the Infinite, consciousness, transfiguration, existential panic, meditation, self-inquiry, breathing, being born again, the Light, out-of-body experience, our inner divinity, grace, ecstasy, the self, the Self, piercing the veil, and Tillich.
Crystal clear, sharp and bright, my mind has no opening for evil to roost. The morning sun shines in, My mind, too, is clear and bright;
A divine light is directed on me, penetrating this glow in which I am contained...