News
Feeling Truth
michael angelo medina
Jul 2, 2025
Summary
What is frisson, that sudden chill wreathing the body like signals cascading down an antenna? In scientific terms, it is a “psychogenic shiver”, a somatic surge of awe caused not merely by temperature but by a psychoactive response to profoundly emotional, symbolic, or perceptual resonance. This phenomenon, often termed “aesthetic chills”, occurs during music, speech, revelation, or beauty so moving that the nervous system becomes clarified, shedding its usual filters. The veil parts, and truth is known.
We wish to be ever-flowing in truth, as the fountains with their waters. The methodology of accessing truth is inherent to our nature. The body must be brought to stillness, along with the mind, so that the presence of the spirit can be felt as a sensational shiver, a spectral chill. This sensation surrounds the head with light, then travels down the spine, permeating the torso, along the arms and legs, and can even make the hairs on your neck stand on end. It is possible to mistake this sensation with fear, but the feeling is more akin to embodiment, or divine activation, a phenomenon that neuroscience terms “frisson”.
What is frisson, that sudden chill wreathing the body like signals cascading down an antenna? In scientific terms, it is a “psychogenic shiver”, a somatic surge of awe caused not merely by temperature but by a psychoactive response to profoundly emotional, symbolic, or perceptual resonance. This phenomenon, often termed “aesthetic chills”, occurs during music, speech, revelation, or beauty so moving that the nervous system becomes clarified, shedding its usual filters. The veil parts, and truth is known.
Frisson (French for shiver, derived from Latin’s frigus, “cold”, from which we developed the term frigid) is a bodily reaction, the nervous system’s recognition of universal truth being felt as a ripple across the interior lightbody (the anima, that which exists tandem and parallel to the flesh, giving life to the golem). Frisson is caused by successful alignment with a higher frequency. Neuroscientists recognize that part of this phenomenon is the triggering of reward circuitry in the brain, that of positive mental chemicals flooding regions associated with emotional processing, pattern recognition, and motor control, yet they too attest that the trigger comes from outside the body, from experience within the world. The true trigger to spontaneous body shivers is sacred, that of the soul glimpsing its own reflection in the beauty of the world. Aesthetic chills are messages that confirm when one is perceiving what matters most, an attunement to the relevance of spirit’s observation. They occur when we focus our attention on that which our higher self wishes to indicate to our senses: when we witness a heartfelt scene, hear a voice resound with emotion, observe beauty wrought with meaning, or experience a piece of art that harmonizes self and All. “Spirit shivers” accompany didactic texts, narrative climaxes, or melodic movements that serve to align one’s trajectory to that of their ideal state, that which personal destiny has woven for them.
Frisson is the yes of the soul. It is the celestial echo of being touched by meaning that predates language. When you feel chills not from cold but from clarity, when the back of your neck tingles at a truth too raw for words, you are experiencing cosmic unity. The divine structure of life governs our physical experience. The aesthetic is spiritual, the shiver is real, and the insight is eternal. Cherish your chills. They are not “glitches in the system”, but rather serve as intimate reminders that you remain attuned to the greater channels of experience, genuinely moved by what is real.
These shivers can also serve as an indicator of perceived non-corporeal entities, yet in this case one is generally aware of such a presence by the accompaniment of additional phenomena, such as the activation of the body’s rapid response system (light, fight, or flight), and accompanying sensory stimulation in the form of sound, shape, et cet. The presence of a ghost and the experience of one’s own spirit can be difficult to distinguish, and it is in these crucial moments of lucidity that one must pray for discernment, a gift freely given by the Holy Spirit.
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