An aspect of spiritual visions is hardly ever considered, or suspected, by both cynics and true-believers alike. This aspect is the social pressure to create a fantastic vision within the context of certain prescribed beliefs. Whether the experience is real, or a hallucination, the visionary is almost required to supplement his, or her, spiritual revelation with an accompanying visual phenomenon. In other words, a third possibility could be that the visionary is simply making it up. In order to validate the experience of what may or may not be a legitimate spiritual experience, our would be saint can be compelled to exaggerate or append a dramatic lie to a spirituality that, if real, needs not be supplemented.
I had a friend who stopped using drugs and alcohol after an incident (while sniffing glue) in which Jesus appeared to him and slapped the bag of glue out of his hands. He became a “Born again” Christian because of this experience and several years later admitted that his vision of Jesus was a lie. However, he added, had he not told this lie he might not have stayed sober. In order to validate a profound conversion nonetheless he felt he had to explain it with an equally profound vision to affirm his conversion. Who am I to say his conversion was any the less valid because of his lie?
geo
4,537
No comments:
Post a Comment