Personal : Religion/Spirituality : Mystical experience

G._Quispel

Gilles Quispel (30 May 1916 – 2 March 2006) was a Dutch theologian and historian of Christianity and Gnosticism. He was professor of early Christian history at Utrecht University.
Born in Rotterdam, after finishing secondary school in Dordrecht, Quispel studied classical philology from 1934 to 1941 at the Leiden University. At Leiden he also began to study theology, which he continued at the University of Groningen. Quispel completed his doctoral work in 1943 at Utrecht University with a dissertation examining the sources utilized in Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem. He devoted study to several Gnostic systems, particularly Valentinianism. In 1948-1949 he spent a year in Rome as a Bollingen fellow and was appointed professor of the history of the early Church at Utrecht University in 1951. Quispel served as a visiting professor at Harvard University in 1964-1965 and at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1968. He was engaged in first editing Nag Hammadi Codex I (the "Jung Codex") and devoted attention to the Nag Hammadi Library and particularly to the Gospel of Thomas throughout the rest of his career. Quispel also made contributions to the study of early "Jewish-Christian" traditions as well as Tatian's Diatessaron (a second-century gospel harmony). He died in El Gouna, Egypt.

Gianna_Jessen

Gianna Jessen (born April 6, 1977) is an American anti-abortion activist. She was born during a failed instillation abortion attempt. The 2011 film October Baby is loosely based on Jessen's life.

MacGregor_Mathers

Samuel Liddell (or Liddel) MacGregor Mathers (8 or 11 January 1854 – 5 or 20 November 1918), born Samuel Liddell Mathers, was a British occultist and member of the S.R.I.A.. He is primarily known as one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a ceremonial magic order of which offshoots still exist. He became so synonymous with the order that Golden Dawn scholar Israel Regardie observed in retrospect that "the Golden Dawn was MacGregor Mathers."

Claude_Vorilhon

Raël (born Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon, 30 September 1946) is a French journalist who founded and leads the Raëlian Movement, an international UFO religion.
Before becoming a religious leader, Raël, then known as Claude Vorilhon, worked as a sports-car journalist and test driver for his car-racing magazine, Autopop. Following a purported extraterrestrial encounter in December 1973, he formed the Raëlian Movement and changed his name to Raël. He later published several books, which detail the encounter with a being called Yahweh in 1973. He traveled the world to promote his books for over 30 years.

Audrey_Santo

Audrey Marie Santo (December 19, 1983 – April 14, 2007), often referred to as Little Audrey, was a young girl from Worcester, Massachusetts, through whom miracles were purported to have happened after she suffered severe brain damage in a near-drowning accident.

A._T._Mann

Alden Taylor (Tad) Mann, (born August 18, 1943, in Auburn, New York) is an American astrologer, writer, designer and artist who is known for his books and paintings on astrology and sacred architecture, human sexuality and gardens.

Elizabeth_Clare_Prophet

Elizabeth Clare Prophet (née: Wulf, a.k.a. Guru Ma) (April 8, 1939 – October 15, 2009) was an American spiritual leader, author, orator, and writer. In 1963 she married Mark L. Prophet (after ending her first marriage), who had founded The Summit Lighthouse in 1958. Mark and Elizabeth had four children. Elizabeth, after her second husband's death on February 26, 1973, assumed control of The Summit Lighthouse.In 1975, Prophet founded Church Universal and Triumphant, which became the umbrella organization for the movement, and which she expanded worldwide. She also founded Summit University and Summit University Press. In the late 1980s Prophet controversially called on her members to prepare for the possibility of nuclear war at the turn of the decade, encouraging them to construct fallout shelters. In 1996, Prophet handed day-to-day operational control of her organization to a president and board of directors. She maintained her role as spiritual leader until her retirement due to health reasons in 1999.During the 1980s and 1990s, Prophet appeared on Larry King Live, Donahue and Nightline, among other television programs. Earlier media appearances included a feature in 1977 in "The Man Who Would Not Die," an episode of In Search of... She was also featured in 1994 on NBC's Ancient Prophecies.