Term derived from Latin visus, past participle of videre, to see, indicating the appearance to human beings of supernatural persons or scenes. Of great frequency in early and medieval times, and among primitive or semi-civilized races, visions seem to have decreased proportionately with the advance of learning and enlightenment. Thus, among the Greeks and Romans of the classic period, they were comparatively rare, although visions of demons or gods were occasionally seen. On the other hand, among Oriental races, the seeing of visions was a common occurrence, and these visions took more varied shapes.
In medieval Europe, visions were almost commonplace, and directions were given by the church to enable men to distinguish visions of divine origin from false delusions which were either self-generated or the work of the demons and/or the devil.
Visions may be roughly divided into two classes—those which are spontaneous and those which are induced. The great majority belong to the latter class.
In 1854, Joseph Ennemoser, in his work The History of Magic, enumerated causative factors in the appearance of visions to an individual: (1) a sensitive organism and delicate constitution; (2) a religious education and ascetic life (fasting, penance, etc.);(3) narcotics—opium, wine, incense, narcotic salves (witch-salves); (4) delirium, monomania; and/or (5) fear and expectation, preparatory words, songs, and prayers.
Among the visions induced by prayer and fasting and the severe self-discipline of the religious ascetic, must be included many historical or traditional instances—the visions of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony, St. Bernard Ignatius, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Hildegarde, and Joan of Arc. It may be noted that the convent has often been the special haunt of religious visions. A wave of apparitions of the Virgin Mary began in France early in the nineteenth century and several hundred incidents have been reported in the intervening decades to the present time. (See Garabandal; Medjugorje)
But the most potent means for the induction of visionary appearances are those discovered and used by indigenous people around the world. Over the ages people have indulged in narcotic substances, especially those with hallucinogenic properties, from opium and hashish to peyote. They have also used a variety of spiritual, psychic, and physical disciplines. Thus some fakirs, yogis, and other practitioners have been known to gaze for hours at a time at one object or remain for months in practically the same position, or practice various mortifications of the body, so that they may fall at length into a visionary state. Another ancient method of inducing visionary experience was staring into a shiny object such as a crystal or magic mirror.
The narcotic salves with which some anoint themselves are said to be similar to the witch unguents used in the Middle Ages, which induced in the witch the hallucination that she was flying through the air on a goat or a broomstick. Opium is also said to produce a sensation of flying, as well as visions of celestial delight. Alcoholic intoxication can induce visions of a more negative nature, most notably of insects or animals, as those who have experienced delirium can attest. Nitrogen may have a similar effect. The vapors rising from the ground in some places, or those found in certain caverns, are said to exercise an influence similar to that of narcotics.
Native Americans practiced external methods of inducing visions—solitude, fasting, and the use of salves or ointments. The vision quest was a popular activity of young men in many tribes. In some African, West Indian, and Arabic countries certain dances produced altered conferences, helping participants toward the desired visionary ecstasy. Rhythmic and repetitive music also assisted this process.
Spontaneous Visions
Spontaneous visions, although less common, are yet sufficiently numerous to merit attention here. The difficulty is, of course, to know just how far "fear and expectation" may have operated to induce the vision. In many cases, as in that of the seer Emanuel Swedenborg, the visions may have commenced as "visions of the night," hardly to be distinguished from dreams, and so from vision of an "internal" nature to clearly externalized apparitions. Swedenborg himself declared that when seeing visions of the latter class he used his senses exactly as when awake, dwelling with the spirits as a spirit, but able to return to his body when he pleased. The artist Benvenuto Cellini, like Swedenborg, had a number of spontaneous visions, though little of the same positive results.
Visions are by no means confined to the sense of sight. Taste, hearing, smelling, and touch may all be experienced in a vision. Joan of Arc, for instance, heard voices encouraging her to be the deliverer of her country. Examples may be drawn from the Hebrew Bible, as the case of the child Samuel in the temple (I Sam. 3:4), and instances could be multiplied from all ages and all times.
The visions of John Pordage (1607-1681) and the "Philadelphia Society," or, as they called themselves later, the "Angelic Brethren," a British organization stemming from the mysticism of Jakob Boehme in 1651, were noteworthy in this respect because they included the taste of "brimstone, salt, and soot." In the presence of the "Angelic Brethren," pictures were drawn on the windowpanes by invisible hands and were seen to move about.
Physiological explanations of visions have, from the earliest times, been offered. Plato observed: "The eye is the organ of a fire which does not burn but gives a mild light. The rays proceeding from the eye meet those of the outward light. With the departure of the outward light the inner also becomes less active; all inward movements become calmer and less disturbed; and should any more prominent influences have remained they become in various points where they congregate, so many pictures of the fancy."
Democritus held that visions and dreams are passing shapes, ideal forms proceeding from other beings. Of deathbed visions Plutarch said: "It is not probable that in death the soul gains new powers which it was not before possessed of when the heart was confined within the chains of the body; but it is much more probable that these powers were always in being, though dimmed and clogged by the body; and the soul is only then able to practise them when the corporeal bonds are loosened, and the drooping limbs and stagnating juices no longer oppress it."
The Spiritualist theory of visions can hardly be called a physiological one, save insofar as spirit may be regarded as refined matter. An old theory of visionary ecstasy on these lines was that the soul left the body and proceeded to celestial spheres, where it remained in contemplation of divine scenes and persons.
In modern times, the idea of the soul as an entity distinct from the physical body has been studied under the name of out-of-the-body travel. Stemming from this concept is the modern study of near-death experiences, in which individuals regarded as clinically dead have been revived and have described visionary experiences (see death).
Similar to this was the doctrine of Swedenborg, whose spirit, he believed, could commune with discarnate spirits (the souls of the dead) as one of themselves. To this may be traced the doctrines of modern Spiritualism, which thus regarded visions as actual spirits or spirit scenes, visible to the ecstatic or entranced subject whose spirit was projected to discarnate planes.
The question whether or not visions are contagious has been much disputed. It has been said that such appearances may be transferred from one person to another by the laying on of hands. In the case of those Scottish seers who claimed second sight, such a transference may take place even by accidental contact with the seer. The vision of the second person is, however, less distinct than that of the original seer.
The same idea prevailed with regard to the visions of "magnetized" patients in the days of animal magnetism. Insofar as these may be identified with the collective hallucinations of the hypnotic state, there is no definite scientific evidence to prove their existence.
Visions occur to people of all cultures and all states and positions. They come to the irreligious and educated, and by no means have they been confined to the ignorant or the superstitious. Many men of genius have been subject to visionary appearance. While Raphael was trying to paint the Madonna, she appeared to him in a vision. The famous composition known as the "Devil's Sonata" was said to have been dictated to Tartini by the devil himself. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also had visions. William Blake 's portraits of the Patriarchs were done from visionary beings which appeared to him in the night. There have been a number of such instances.
Sources:
Barrett, Sir William. Death Bed Visions. London: Methuen, 1926.
Besterman, Theodore. Crystal-Gazing: A Study in the History, Distribution, Theory and Practice of Scrying. London: William Rider, 1924. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1965.
Fielding-Ould, Fielding. The Wonders of the Saints in the Light of Spiritualism. London: John M. Watkins, 1919.
Halifax, Joan. Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979.
Hall, Manly P. Visions and Metaphysical Experiences. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, n.d.
Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. London: Chatto & Windus, 1954. Reprint, New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Klonsky, Milton. William Blake: The Seer and His Visions. New York: Crown Publishers, 1977.
Lewis, David. The Life of S. Teresa of Jesus. London, 1970.
Muldoon, Sylvan J., and Hereward Carrington. The Projection of the Astral Body. London: Rider, 1929.
Pordage, John. Truth Appearing Through the Clouds of Unde-served Scandal. N.p., 1655.
Ring, Kenneth. Life at Death; A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience. New York: William Morrow, 1980.
