Section 2. Visions and Voices Are Not Mystical Phenomena
Let us begin by excluding from the class of mystical states certain experiences which popular opinion may perhaps tend to regard as mystical, but which are not genuinely so. By doing this, and giving the reasons for it, we shall be able to learn not only what are not mystical phenomena, but by implication we can learn some important facts about those phenomena which are mystical. The chief such occurrences to be excluded are visions and voices. Not only is this the opinion of most competent scholars, but it has also been the opinion which the great mystics themselves have generally held. They have often been subject to visions and voices, but have usually discounted them as of doubtful value or importance and at any rate as not to be confused with genuine mystical experiences.

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A Catholic saint may have a vision of the Virgin Mary or hear a voice which he attributes to Jesus. A Hindu may have a vision of the goddess Kali. Neither these nor the voices heard by St. Joan of Arc, Socrates, or Mohammed, are to be accounted as mystical phenomena, although it is quite possible that these persons may also have been the subjects of genuine mystical experiences. St. Paul is often called a mystic. The light which he is alleged to have seen on the road to Damascus and the voice which he heard saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" should not as such be classed as mystical experiences, although there may be other grounds for classing him as a mystic. The words in which he speaks of another experience as that of a man who was "caught up into the third heaven . . . and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter," have something of the true mystical ring. Even here there is some doubt because it is not clear whether the word "words" is to be taken literally or metaphorically. If literally, then this would amount to a voice which would rule it out from the class of mystical phenomena. The reference to the "third heaven" is also subject to the same doubt since it may be interpreted either metaphorically or literally as an actual vision. What however gives the sentence a genuine mystical ring is the expression "unspeakable" and the words "which it is not lawful for a man to utter". That their experiences are "unspeakable" or "ineffable" is a common statement made by mystics, although there are, as we shall see, different interpretations of this fact. The words "not lawful" may perhaps refer to a peculiarity of Jewish mystics, namely that in their tradition it is generally considered improper and indecorous for any man to give a personal account of his own mystical experiences. Such accounts, if given by a writer, were usually kept secret and not included in published versions (8) St. Paul's statement "I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me" is also sometimes quoted as evidence that he was a mystic. If so, the word "Christ" is (rightly or wrongly) taken to refer to the realization in Paul of what Eckhart calls the birth of God

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in the apex of the soul, and what Buddhists refer to as the realization of the Buddha-nature in a man.

We may raise the question whether our exclusion of visions and voices from the class of mystical phenomena is due to an arbitrary decision, or whether any good reason can be given for it. The answer is that good reasons can be given. The main point is that the most typical as well as the most important type of mystical experi- ences is nonsensuous, whereas visions and voices have the character of sensuous imagery. The introvertive kind of mystical states are, according to all the accounts we have of them, entirely devoid of all imagery. Extrovertive experiences may indeed be called sensuous, since they consist in a transfiguration of actual sense perception, but even this is not imagery but is direct perception by the eyes. Extrovertive experience, there is some reason to think, is no more than a stepping stone to the higher introvertive state, and in any case is of less importance. These assertions will, of course, be fully explained and documented in the proper place. Introvertive experience is alleged by the experients of it to be void of content and formless. Eckhart and Ruysbroeck and many other mystics warn us that sensuous imagery must be forcibly extruded by a mind which seeks the goal of the mystic.

St. Teresa frequently saw visions. She was not an intellectual as Eckhart was, and not capable of much analytical or philosophical thinking. Yet she was aware that her visions, or at least some of them, were hallucinations. She suspected that some of them were sent by the devil to distract her from her efforts to attain union with God. She thought that others might be sent by God as a help and comfort, although even in these cases she was apparently not deceived into supposing that what she saw in the visions was objectively existent. St. John of the Cross writes that whether visions are from God or the devil

the understanding should not be encumbered by them or feed upon them, nor should the soul desire to receive and hold them, if it wishes to remain detached, empty, pure, and simple, as is required for the state of

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union. For, as God is not comprised in any image or form, nor contained in any particular kind of knowledge, the soul, in order to be united with God, must not take hold of any distinct form or any particularized knowledge? (9)

On the other hand, although visions and voices are clearly distinguished by mystics from the higher states which they attain, there is a certain correlation between the types of persons who have mystical experiences and those who see visions and hear voices. That is why they themselves are so careful to distinguish them.

The Upanishads are of course among the earliest known documents of Indian mysticism, or indeed of any mysticism, dating as they do from the first half of the first millennium B.C. They invariably describe the mystical experiences as being "soundless, formless, intangible," (10) i.e., devoid of sensuous content. But in the mention of the practices of controlled breathing and concentration and other spiritual exercises in the Svetasvatara Upanishad we find the statement:

As you practice meditation you may,see in vision forms resembling snow, crystal, wind, smoke, fire, lightning, fireflies. the sun, the moon. These are signs that you are on the way to the revelation of Brahman. (11)


The distinction is here clearly made between visions and the genuine, mystical state, but the correlation referred to above is also asserted. The curious difference between the kind of visions mentioned by the Indian mystic, fireflies for instance, and the pious visions of the Virgin of which Christian mystics speak, may perhaps tell a tale about the differences between the two cultures, but the point is that both are sensuous images, and as such are excluded from the class of mystical phenomena, although it is recognized that the mystic is peculiarly liable to them. On the essential point of distinguishing

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between visions and mystical experiences the Christian mystics and the Hindu mystics are in complete accord.