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Dr Yvonne Kason – Farther Shores

‘Martin’ was a child prodigy.  He is now thirty and is working on his PhD in physics.  As a child, Martin showed an inspired ability to create and compose music that was closely related to mystical experiences:

From a very young age I felt that I did not fit in-that I was different. I went to the Roman Catholic church with my parents, and I heard talk there about mystical states, and how only Jesus, the apostles, the saints, and the Virgin Mary ever experienced them, I remember at the age of seven thinking that the church was wrong, because I went into these incredible states of bliss and awe whenever I surrendered to the inner music I felt pouring through my soul.

At a very young age I learned to play guitar and piano, and I used to sit and play the music I heard resounding inside my head. I discovered that if I opened up to the divine I would experience feelings of bliss and ecstasy and I would hear extremely beautiful music pouring through my soul. The music I heard and played in this way was original. I had no sheet music for it, and I had never heard it before. It was simply flowing through me.

I tried to talk to my parents about what I was experiencing, but they told me not to talk about such nonsense.

They agreed I seemed to like music, but they thought that my talking about mystical experiences and bliss was the work of the devil or –something evil. Slowly, I started to believe that there must be something wrong or something bad about the blissful state I went into when I played.  And, finally, when I was around ten I became convinced, that what my parents were saying was true.

One of the reasons why this was that the experiences felt too good-and l had learned by then that life wasn’t supposed to feel that good. I started to actively suppress the music and not allow myself to go into the mystical states.

I managed to keep them suppressed until about three years ago when I was working on my Ph.D. Suddenly I felt as if something inside of me cracked or exploded and I couldn’t keep this incredible creative urge down any more. It terrified me, because I didn’t know what it was.