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After reading/watching hundreds of testimonies of people sharing their own personal spiritual experiences, and after analyzing how different skeptics react to these testimonies, I've come to the conclusion that there are two extremes that in my opinion should be equally avoided: 1) believing 100% of what a testimony says and 2) dismissing 100% of what a testimony says. The reason is that testimonies typically present an account of personal experiences entangled with the individual's own interpretation of those experiences. The experiences themselves, devoid of any interpretation, are the "raw data" of the testimony, whereas the interpretation parts are biased by the individual's previous beliefs.

Take for example a person relaying their own personal experience of the Kundalini awakening. The "raw data" of the testimony would be the experiences themselves, e.g. feeling an intense vibration/electric current running up the spine, feeling bliss, ecstasy, etc. On the other hand, claims such as "I opened my heart chakra", "I awakened the Kundalini energy", etc. would be part of the individual's own interpretation of those experiences.

My current personal opinion is that testimonies can provide valuable insights if we are careful enough to distinguish between these two aspects. However, I'm saying this based on the assumptions that people are generally 1) honest and 2) more or less reliable when it comes to reporting raw personal experiences, e.g. their emotions, their symptoms, their physical sensations, what they heard, what they saw, etc. (again, making sure to remove as much "biased interpretations" from the reports as possible and just keeping the "raw experience" parts).

Are my assumptions accurate? Are there psychological studies discussing the reliability of witnesses when it comes to reporting their own personal experiences? What about reporting their own "spiritual experiences"? Under which circumstances are testimonies of spiritual experiences more reliable?

* Note: a possibly related question for the interested reader.

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    I think your assumptions lack foundation when using internet testimony. There are many potential biases and confounding factors. An obvious example bias is that Google promotes videos that generate profits, thus suppressing videos that individuals do not take vicarious pleasure in watching. Perhaps starting with a layman's guide to bias would be a starting point: Your approach to this analysis is known as a retrospective study for which biases are a recognised issue. – Tony Mobbs Nov 11 '20 at 13:41
  • @TonyMobbs: "An obvious example bias is that Google promotes videos that generate profits, thus suppressing videos that individuals do not take vicarious pleasure in watching" - which can be easily overcome by finding testimonies from incipient channels with very few views, but I agree, it's a bias one has to be aware of. –  Nov 11 '20 at 13:49
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    Are you confident that YouTube has a fair representation of all perspectives? Is it possible that only those with a bias are motivated to upload videos? Your assumptions can not be relied upon until you further consider the pitfalls of retrospective studies and take steps to mitigate the obvious biases. – Tony Mobbs Nov 11 '20 at 14:02
  • @TonyMobbs - You can find complementary testimonies on other platforms, such as reddit, which may help to mitigate those potential biases. The thing I like about videos though is that it generally requires individuals to be more serious about what they are sharing because they are showing their face to the world, so there is a greater degree of commitment involved in my opinion. It generally adds a bit more credibility to the testimonies. –  Nov 11 '20 at 14:23

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