Chapter 10: Spiritual Synesthesia

by Larry Randolph

In Ephesians 1: 18-19, Paul writes, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know
the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” In this chapter Larry Randolph explains why preparing for what is to come may mean learning to interact with God in many more ways than we ever imagined.

I believe we are on the verge of experiencing Pentecost on a new level and in a new measure. Time and again the prophets have declared that “something is coming,” and our hearts are filled with expectation to receive all that God has for us. Even so, we still await the “fullness” of what we know is possible in God—a “fullness of Pentecost” for which the original Pentecost provided the down payment.

Though I welcome these declarations, what we really need is to experience something beyond the realm of mere proclamation. We need to see and experience God with all of our spiritual, emotional, and physical senses. We need to be impacted with the same kind of “sound” from heaven that penetrated the atmosphere on the day of Pentecost. I’m weary of sermons and teachings that only restate our need for transformation. What I’m hungry for is to experience something fresh from heaven. Now! Not later!

Recently, I’ve been pondering the similarities between the sound of God’s voice in Genesis and the sound of a heavenly wind on the day of Pentecost in Acts. I began to realize that just as the sound of God’s voice to Adam was merely an introduction into other realms of encountering God, “those in the upper room also heard a sound that opened them up to other realms of supernatural phenomena.” What they heard caused them to see fiery tongues, which caused them to feel drunk, which, in turn, caused them to speak in a heavenly language. So, the sound of wind they initially heard seemed completely unrelated to what they saw, experienced, and released.

With this in mind, I began to research the different experiences sound can cause. I quickly discovered that in psychology there is a dynamic called “synesthesia.” Recent studies show that synesthesia affects 3-4% of the world’s population. Synesthesia, meaning “to perceive together,” causes a person’s neural pathways to be cross-wired in such a way that their five senses interact with each other. This unusual mingling of their senses allows them to hear colors, smell numbers, taste sound, etc.

Considering the description of Pentecost in the book of Acts, it appears that a spiritual synesthesia of sorts happened on that day. The bottom line is they heard a “sound” like a mighty rushing wind that lead to a number of other different experiences. As stated, the 120 in the upper room heard a sound, which caused them to see something, which caused them to feel something, which caused them to release something.

So, how can hearing a sound of a wind create such a unique chain reaction? Again, the answer is clear: a heavenly “sound” can create a heightened level of synesthesia that opens our senses to extreme encounters with the supernatural. As a result, we are enabled to experience God with every fiber of our being.

This is the kind of heavenly sound for which I’ve been longing. It’s a new sound that will trigger our senses to “hear” what we see and “see” what we hear. As a consequence, we will “hear” outside of the realm of just a vibration on our eardrum. We will experience the sound of heaven with our whole spirit, emotions, and physical body. The result will be a fresh expression of Pentecost.

I believe the more our senses are involved in receiving from Heaven, the more of God’s Spirit we will retain. In this next move of the Spirit, I am convinced that our encounter with God will radically transform the realm of our senses. This will be the second Pentecost—hearing something from Heaven; seeing something different than what we heard; feeling something different than what we saw and heard; and releasing something totally different from what we saw, heard, and felt.

In light of this truth, we need to start training ourselves to hear from God with our entire being. No longer should we limit the way we “receive,” nor should we cling to the ways we’ve previously “heard” His voice. It’s as if we have a “God radio” that we stubbornly keep tuned to our favorite channel. Though there are thousands of spiritual signals that we could choose, we only “listen” to heaven on a very small bandwidth. In the realm of available sound, we often keep ourselves tuned to one frequency.

About 10 years ago, I felt compelled to write the book Spirit Talk. However, at the time it seemed to be a premature concept that God would speak in colors, numbers, smell, intuition, etc. Now it seems that people are beginning to open their hearts to the many ways that God communicates to us. As for the subject of synesthesia, what if God chooses to speak more frequently in colors and numbers in this next outpouring? What if he uses colors, numbers, smell, feeling, and sound at the same time? Or speaks to us in a combination of modalities that are physical, mental, and emotional, or even vibrational? Are we really open to “new things” in God?

The answer should be yes! And our cry should be, “Speak to us God! We are now aware that You want to activate our spiritual and physical eyes, ears, taste, smell, and other ‘senses.’ No longer will we allow our minds to block out the “sound of heaven” because of our religious dogma. We are committed to developing the sensitivity of our spirit, soul, and body, so that we can experience all the different ways Heaven expresses itself.

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Comments

  1. David Anderson says

    Generally I’ve found Larry Randolph inspiring but I feel I need to protest his formulation on page 103 where he says “…. the most significant thing we can do to position ourselves for the “new sound” is to start recovering the truths that are currently held captive by many unbelievers. Many New Agers, for example, have already begun to explore….”.
    The reason I protest this wording of “unbelievers” is that by saying it this way, Larry OBSCURES the truth. The truth is that the new agers haven’t stolen anything and are not holding anything captive. The truth is that “religious Christians” have abandoned and shunned these truths… left these truths lying around unrecognized and unused. In other words, the point made elsewhere in the book needs to be taken seriously. It is entirely the responsibility of “indoctrinated” Christians to admit their mistake rather than describing new agers as thieves. In this situation, regarding these truths, it is actually the conventional Christians who are “unbelievers”, while some new agers are “believers”.
    The reason Jesus several times asked his disciples “where is your belief?” or “where is your faith” is because it is belief that is crucial. The kind of belief Jesus was speaking about is “what do you REALLY believe at your deepest level of operation?”… Jesus wasn’t asking for a list of surface level doctrines or a creed held in the mind, but was instead asking about that “in the heart” i.e.: where the disciples were REALLY coming-from.

    • Hi David. Thanks for taking the time to write. I agree with you that Christians have tended to abandon and shun many of God’s truths leaving them unrecognized and unused and available for anyone to pick up who is willing to explore them. But, on the other hand, what I’ve been seeing lately is a form of thievery in that many New Age, cosmic consciousness believers have appropriated Christian doctrines and Scriptures to support their philosophies and have incorporated them into their belief systems. Because of this, the new “enlightenment,” higher consciousness movement within the New Age has become a very persuasive, eclectic mix of Christian and non-Christian beliefs. I’ve found that often-times they know our Scriptures better than we do which causes Christians to be uncertain about how to confront this misuse of our “property.”

  2. David Anderson says

    hi Ellyn… thanks for the response yet you have provoked me into a rebuttal of sorts. I think your last line makes clear the very problem that is at the root: the concept that somehow Christians have a proprietary, ownership of God and that they exclusively possess “Our God” and God’s gifts, procedures etc. Personally I think this both arrogant and incorrect. My view is that God isn’t owned by anyone, doesn’t need to be protected, and just may operate outside the Christian religion’s set of multiple doctrinal boxes whenever He wishes…. in other words God is Free to be God.

    I also think the scripture in Isaiah should be seriously considered: “My ways are not your ways.”

    Finally a few days ago, due to a series of circumstances, I was reading slowly, line by line, 2 Corinthians and was hugely impressed by the translation of the first line I came upon in which Paul writes: “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.”

    Thus, in summary, my view is that God is not owned, is not contained by human schemes and models, has His own ideas and ways and that sometimes those ways are very unexpected and even contrary to that “deemed right” by human authorities. What IF God is, indeed, living? What IF God is creating now…. this now ? What IF current reality and “future” reality are in dynamic, present time, creation and are not, necessarily, bound by previous proclamations, plans laid etc? To put it bluntly: “what if God, Himself, is not bound by humanly perceived and recorded history and expectation and desire?”

    What if such an Understanding is precisely why Salomon proclaims in Ecclesiastes that ALL the studies and models and theories and theologies are vanities… and that the only proper position is to stand in Awe…. and sometimes Fear… of The Creator, creating……

    • Hi David. I hope you’re not interpreting my statement about misuse of “property” to mean that an understanding of God and the way He works is the exclusive “property” of Christians. Quite the contrary. That’s one of the main messages we tried to get across in the book. God is God and, as you say, He is completely beyond any human systems, schemes and models. However, His works and ways are open to discovery to all. In fact, Paul says they can be clearly understood through the things God has made. However, there are some distinctives about Christianity that could be called “proprietary” and those are what I am referring to when I state that ” many New Age, cosmic consciousness believers have appropriated Christian doctrines and Scriptures to support their philosophies and have incorporated them into their belief systems.” What is most distinctive and could be called “proprietary” about Christianity is that Jesus isn’t considered just some enlightened guru but claimed to be the “only begotten” Son of God and the only way to a complete reconciliation with Him. In fact, the way we’re told to test whether something considered spiritual is really from God is to find out whether it acknowledges the truth of who Jesus really is. To me, to take the person and teachings of Jesus and attribute them to an expression of cosmic consciousness and weave them into an eclectic belief system like the New Age is a bit of an intellectual and spiritual cheat.

  3. There is a sound and chemical component to any ovates connection to the soul system.
    http://piknar.growsands.com

    John the baptist, Yeshuwa and Stephan 1st Christian Martyr all broke Moses Law, and died for it. All three are connected to Exodus 30.23, and for transgressing the proper use of the ‘holy anointing oil’. Christ means ‘anointed’ in greek. Stephan was also ‘anointed’. Stephan also received ‘the gift of the holy spirit’.

    With our times, it is much easier through analogies using new tech to paint a picture that allows easier visualization of all this. You can’t touch, smell, see etc the phone network, but you know it exists, your cellphone is the physical manifestation of that network, yet until its baptismal 611 call, the phone doesn’t work until than. So father is the network, son is the phone and the holy spirit is the wireless connection that connects them as one, except with dna/rna we are far more advanced than the network/phone binary system of zeros and ones.

    Anyways, i have heard the sound of love. I am hoping to hear it again. Sound is key, with unconditional love and dialing in to the right frequencies with special software(anointing oil) allowing for this to happen, a conduit to a compassionate and patient love light.

    Thanks to open source and an understanding of it, we will be able to propel many people to new heights of consciousness, which in turn will end this stranglehold of our freedoms to be complete beings. No more ‘chosen people’ and their ‘proprietorship’ ways, just free willing people.

  4. kimberly thurman says

    I go to a church in Knoxville tn. Russ and Faye Porcella new covenant fellowship. I have been reading your book. So one day I was showing it to Faye, she said you and she were friends back when you lived in Knoxville. We have been having an unexplained smell at the church. Russ believes it to be a smell from heaven. Some say it smells like wood and others like flowers. Some say they feel it. It was first noticed March 4, 2014. I believe it is changing us in some way. I just wanted your thoughts on it.

    • kimberly thurman says

      just wanted to know if there was a way to get larry Randolph address or email ? thank you for your time

    • Thank you for your comment on the book.

      Yes, Faye and I were friends when my husband pastored a church in Knoxville years ago. I’m glad to hear she and Russ are still going strong because we haven’t kept in touch for awhile.

      As far as the smell is concerned, I’m not sure, but it really could be the smell of the presence of the Lord. I work in the Healing Rooms at Bethel Church in Redding, CA and we often encounter smells there–both godly and ungodly. Certain diseases seem to give off particular smells and when the Holy Spirit shows up there is often the smell of apples or roses. And oftentimes when I am by myself meditating on the Lord, I smell the smell of flowers. And I’ve experienced times when there was a strange taste in my mouth while I was praying for someone. Other people have told me they experience this too.

      God has infinite ways he can communicate but we are built in such a way that we can only receive communication through our five senses (touch, taste, smell, seeing, hearing), through our emotions, our thoughts, and through our spiritual sensitivity or intuition (revelation). I believe God is constantly communicating to us in every possible way, we just are accustomed to only “hearing” Him through our eyes, ears, or spiritual intuition. The “language” of God is much broader than that–we just need to learn how to “hear” it in all its variety.

      It is interesting to me that there is so much going on we are oblivious to. For example, animals can “smell” a person’s fear. And sexual predators have described their victims as giving off a “smell” that lets them know the person is vulnerable to being abused. That’s one reason abuse victims tend to have multiple abusers. I once asked a psychologist who worked in prisons how criminals chose their victims and she said it’s as if they “smell” them. So a lot goes on with our senses that we’re unaware of.

      People with synesthesia are wired in such a way that the receiving senses are blended and colors seem to give off “smells” or numbers seem to give off “colors” or “tastes.”

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