Get your conversion
Derren Brown shows how sceptical people can be induced to believe they have had an experience of God interacting with them:
In the documentary the experience is called ‘conversion’ but this is not accurate. It resembles what people in the more mystical traditions call ‘touch’, ‘awareness’ or ‘presence’. It can function as a trigger for undergoing a cognitive-experiential shift (what we would call conversion) but the experience is often short-lived.
Derren Brown’s approach is likely to be succesful in making people have second thoughts about ‘immediate divine interventions’. On the other hand, charismatic Christians can and will say that God can use charlatans to make himself known to people. To me the video foremost shows the mystery of a closeness that is mundane, indeed staged or tricked, yet completely transcendent, moving ourself on the border of that what we can grasp as ’self’. We call it ‘hug’ or something and it reminds us of what our grandma used to say.
(credits to Tjerk)
