I'd like to know what conclusion you've arrived at ~ Knowsnothing
I did some research on altered and dissociative states of consciousness because of what I personally experienced.
I used to follow the WT's and an elder's advice to draw close to God through prayer and meditation. Unknown to me, my attempts to meditate and draw close to God resulted in self-induced trances/self-induced altered states of consciousness.
While in this state, I used to feel as if I were on a higher plane, in direct communion with God. There was a feeling of union/oneness with God, a feeling of having accomplished a unitive fusion, merging, becoming one with God, being consumed in a pure union which felt satisfying.
I felt so close to, connected with God in the very presence of God. I thought I was having the most direct and immediate experience of God, by becoming his living vessel. I would feel a state of exultation, inner peace and tranquillity.
There was a sense of newly acquired knowledge (noesis) or understanding. I also experienced visions, auditory hallucinations. I became clairvoyant and psychic. I even experienced channelling/automatic writing/hypergraphia, a rapid and incessant flooding of my mind with thoughts and the compulsion to write them down (I could actually have become a spirit medium!)
I used to think that God was speaking to me, guiding me, leading me, directing me, showing me things, putting thoughts in my mind but then realized that by following this supposed communication from God I was in fact making myself unstable and creating unwanted chaos in my life.
Once I stopped deep prayer and meditation, this supposed communication from God stopped. I began to research what was happening to me only to discover that when I entered a deep meditative state thinking that I was drawing close to God, I was actually self-inducing a trance, an altered/dissociative state of consciousness.
Entering an altered state of consciousness involves a transition from the left brain to the right brain whereby the rational left brain is suppressed and quieted and the perceptive faculties of the intuitive right brain are awakened.
You then begin to descend to the unknown, inner world of your subconscious mind, to the deeper levels, inner recesses of your consciousness, releasing thoughts, impressions, visions, images, voices, words etc. from the deep intuitive levels of the right brain - your subconscious mind begins to "speak" to you.
You begin to unlock a deep level of consciousness where psychic and extrasensory perception can be done.
I then realized that deep meditative states sent my subconscious mind into overdrive and unleashed the voices, images, thoughts, words, impressions, visions etc buried there.
This personal experience is how I know that God or demons or any other spirit being does not speak to persons or put thoughts into a person's mind.
I also leant about the unconscious dynamics of the human mind:
Information enters our brains minutely, hourly, daily at the conscious and unconscious levels. Some of the unconscious information never makes its way to the conscious mind for active processing but remains in our subconscious - hypnosis has proven to be an effective method in accessing/uncovering information buried in a person's subconscious.
There is always background activity taking place in our brains when we are awake and asleep and there is also a constant interplay between the conscious and subconscious mind - some information from the unconscious mind makes its way to the conscious mind for active processing and vice versa - thoughts/issues/concerns from the conscious mind can get pushed out of consciousness into the unconscious mind.
Our minds are never perfectly still. There is always subtle processing going on in which we can't consciously identify the thoughts in terms of clear words or clear images. There are rapid and fleeting associations taking place in the subconscious mind.
Subtle processing or preconscious or subconscious processing gives rise to conscious self-talk and imaging, however, not all unconscious information makes its way to the conscious mind for active processing some remains in our subconscious and can be accessed/uncovered by methods like hypnosis.
Thoughts, impressions, visions, images, voices, words, etc. can also be released from our subconscious when we engage in certain intense practices like intense/deep/strong prayer, meditation, fasting etc. which can alter a person's state of consciousness to the point where, the person descends to deeper levels of his/her consciousness, unleashing thoughts, impressions, visions, images, voices, words etc. from the deep mind.
When a person is channeling/acting as a medium, they enter a self-induced trance, an altered state of consciousness prior to the commencement of their channelling/mediumship. This altered state is brought about by meditation, self-hypnosis etc.
I believe that when brain scans of these persons show that one part of such person's brain shuts down and another part takes over, the scans are perhaps showing what I described above - the transition from thel eft brain to the right brain whereby the rational left brain is suppressed and quieted and the perceptive faculties of the intuitive right brain are awakened.
My personal experience also showed me that one can meditate in order to supposedly draw close to God but you can also do the same thing as a channeller/spirit medium to "contact" the spirit world - you can meditate to the point of inducing a trance and alter your state of consciousness so that you can become a channel for discarnate spirits.
