“Any idea of God is unthinkable.” That was our conclusion.

It was a cozy evening. The twilight was just fading. A soft breeze gently moved the leaves among the cottonwood canopy above. My best friend and I lay on the lawn of Weber College. We were both students of science and were discussing the fascinating discoveries of physics and psychology. Although we were only in the eleventh grade, we had both been reading extensively. We were both doing independent research. I was working in physics. My friend was into mathematics.

Our discussion turned to religion and how such ideas might fit into the measurable universe. It was clear that they did not. We decided that the idea of God was unthinkable, and resolved that integrity required we declare ourselves atheists. We would not be included in the company of those who danced around fires, muttered incantations and fiddled with beads.

We agreed that science clearly shows that everything in the universe functions and exists according to physical and mathematical laws. Humans are no exception. They are machines: complex biological systems of physics, chemistry, mechanics and electronics. Human reactions, every thought, all decisions and ideas, are the result of past experience, circumstances, and information. Free choice is a deception. As for religion, it is the result of the combination of ignorance and survival instinct.

Nor could we see any need for God to keep the universe moving. Stars were being born out of interstellar gasses, others were cycling through their life courses. At the end of that span, though incredibly long, they either collapsed and exploded with a fury that sent their outer shells hundreds of millions miles into space, or they collapsed completely, imploding at nearly two hundred thousand miles per second. They would then wink out, becoming a mass of intense gravity that warped time and space for hundreds of thousands of miles all around them. All of this was done within the precision of physical law.

COMPARISON OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

These were the things that fascinated me. One could use hard data to make predictions, investigate, measure and calculate. Science required sagacity, knowledge and skill. The romance of reason experimentation and discovery was as exciting to me as any frontier.

Religion, on the other hand, was laden with mystery. There were countless ideas and endless contentions and confusion. Ministers all claiming special revelation or insight from the same God publicly castigated each others teachings; then call for brotherly love. They professed eternal life and spent half their time talking of death. They spoke of faith and never bothered to define it. We were told to "have" it, but couldn't learn how to know when we "got" it. They told the poor and hurting to trust God for their answers, then went begging to them for their own needs, claiming to be trusting God.

The greatest offense to me was the irresponsible use of science. For instance, a minister who was doing well with his theology began to speak of the planet Saturn. "Scientists have found evidence that the rings of Saturn are comprised off ice. That means Saturn's rings are a temporary phenomenon." Then, to my amazement, he concluded from his logical mush that the entire solar system is a little over fourteen thousand years old. Not satisfied, he gave the mush another stir. "This proves the Genesis account of creation." Ministers commonly manipulated science in the name of truth. Christianity, it seemed was blind and irresponsible.

Now, at last, my friend and I were free from that confusing hypocrisy, its suffocating traditions, ravings and messages of fear. We didn't need their wobbly crutch. Determinism, though ego shattering, was better. I'd face truth straight on, wherever it could be found. I'd be content with my false sense of free will. I felt liberated and cozy inside.

CONFLICT AND PSYCHIC DABBLING

At the same time, I suspected there was more to life than the dimensions of time and space. Because like it or not, there were well documented psychic experiences. Although I was sure such things also obeyed mathematical law, I hoped they might provide a shorter route to truth than physical science alone. The most direct route would be to define and measure psychic cause and effect. Without that knowledge, physics might search forever and never come to full understanding.

"Perhaps," I thought, "I could find a common ground among the maze of psychic experiences of the various religions." Any amount of consistency, regardless of how small, might provide a kernel of truth upon which to build. I began looking into psychic science, witchcraft and the occult. I practiced psychic sight and became involved in an eastern system called Vedanta.

Vedanta promised remarkable experiences and claimed ultimate complete knowledge and awareness of everything. That was exactly what I wanted. But the final act of progression required putting one's house in order and passing out of this life into a higher plane. I didn't trust anything that provided experiences but offered no more explanation than "you're not ready for that understanding." Moreover, I wasn't ready to die as a final experiment. I couldn't feature my carcass as the jetsam of investigation, especially when no one could know whether the experiment worked or crashed. Still, it was compelling and I had difficulty turning away.

ENTER, FEAR

My psychic dabbling produced results, so I was encouraged to continue. Sometimes the outcome was predictable. It was the times they were not, that unseated me. For instance, I had been watching an Alcoa show on "mock up." That's a type of experience where an individual is able to create something by power of will. That something may be a vase or a cat, or even a house. It looks and feels like the real article but is really a psychic substance called ectoplasm.

We went to bed as usual. I was wakened about midnight by the "pressure gage." I closed the bedroom door behind me and stepped across the hall to the bathroom. Returning, I paused in the hall, I thought about the Alcoa program, wishing I could "mock up" something. Suddenly I knew I could, and instantly, before me appeared a large vaporous white being. It filled the end of the hall. My wife, asleep behind the door, screamed. It scared the daylights out of me. I turned it off, having no desire to stand there and get properly introduced to who or whatever-it-was. It wasn't exactly what I would have chosen to mock up. I did learn that such things come through a weird kind of faith. It's called psychic "talent" or "gift". This thing was probably intended to be my "fatherly" spirit guide.

My wife and I were touring a very old English mansion called Speak Hall. I told our guide that I could feel a ghost in the room. He said there was a ghost in the adjoining room. I replied, "It's in here now."

He then told the story of a woman standing before the large upper story window holding her new baby. As she watched, the banker came riding up the path to take possession of the property. She apparently couldn't stand the thought of her child being dispossessed and cast him out of the window onto the paving stones in front of the man. She looked at her dead child, and realizing what she had done, dove out the same window. She died there with her child. Apparently, her intense desire to reverse her action created the ghost.

This confirmed another common element of most psychic occurrences. In the case of ghosts, there were always intense, often insane desires. I felt I was making progress. Please understand, this is what I thought I had learned. I'm suspicious of these ideas because ghosts are part of an unseen and immeasurable world.

NEXT, SUSPICION

A third ingredient to many psychic experiences is relinquishment. It is achieved by chanting, trance and mind clearing. Some called it "getting in tune."

This should have been an important clue that the whole idea of personal psychic power is a sham. Somehow it never made sense to relinquish all control, even life to gain personal power. Nor did it make sense to accept blind guidance from something that gave misinformation. But I wasn't thinking.

There were also experiences that altered my motives from science to entertainment. While sitting quietly at work, it suddenly occurred to me that my boss's secretary was getting married and would thus be free to go to California. When I told her, her jaw dropped to the floor.

She gasped, "I hadn't told anyone! How did you know? I'm planning to get married and we will be moving to California. I've always wanted to live there."

That was fun, I thought.

I even had what I thought was a life saving experience.

Still I found nothing dependable- -no real control. Most things were happening spontaneously or with only a nudge from me. Although psychic talent was being tested and applied to some degree at Duke University, the mechanism between mind and event was missing. The psychics claimed to know, and talked of "vibrations." But I never met one who had any knowledge of what a vibration was. I suspected the word was a mask for ignorance. There were a vast gaggle of frauds. I hadn't found anything measurable, repeatable, predictable or controllable. It was even worse.

A few years previously an article appeared describing an electronic device that could detect psychic energy. Many people built them and they seemed to work. Although the explanations were shrouded in presumtion it appeared to be a break-through. Then a prankster built a dummy without any internal components to fool the psychics. Everyone got fooled. His worked as well as the others. So much for science. I was looking for a straw in a haystack that just kept getting bigger.

AWAKENING

Then, one day I overheard a unique conversation. I was working in a small electronic lab. My boss, a devout atheist, was talking to one of my friends, also an atheist. He spoke of a seminar on psychology. The leader had stated that the book of Genesis was an excellent account on the psychological development of man.

"If that's true," I thought, "I've been missing something! Perhaps the Bible has hard data caged within its stories that has been overlooked." I was willing to try anything. I decided to give the Bible a careful read. I had criticized Christians liberally, but had read only a few chapters of their book.
I found it surprising. By the time I finished the fourth Book of Moses, I realized that it was not the fruit of men. It was indeed from God. It didn’t come from an ascended practitioner of Vedanta or psychic. Moreover, as I read, the words peirced into my inner being.

I had found the foundation I had been seeking: unspeakable love! It was like I had been living in a dark closet and suddenly, the door was flung open reveiling a bright sunrise vista, with new horizines and wonders to explore.

I felt like shouting from the rooftops, Wake up! God is alive! Jesus is who He says He is!

Instead of insane desire there was a call to love. Instead of blind relinquishment, there was order, leadership and a call to free-will obedience. And, again love first given, then asked for. In place of a weird kind of faith in one's abilities, there was faith in God, involving a love-begotten trust. In place of unreliable information and excuses, there was verifiable data. Two years later I would begin to discover how voluminous and precise that data is. I would see how love, science, history and everything else are all married inseparably together. It is difficult to cast off one's views and embrace something foreign. But in this case, it was done with great delight.

After declaring myself a Christian, my psychic experiences began to intensify rapidly. But, reading through the Bible, I found, to my surprise, that paranormal practices were hotly condemned. After that last entertaining incident, I suspected that it just possibly didn't come from God. And since I had no control, it was obviously not my own abilities that were bringing these weird events. Moreover, in the New Testament I read about demons. I spoke quietly, "Lord God, if these things aren't coming from you, I want nothing to do with them."

That was the end of it. All the psychic experiences had been "deceiving wonders."

I had become a citizen of the Kingdom of God and an ambassadore for Jesus.

- Jack Olson, Denver Colorado