Re mysticism and bodily health, many of the medieval mystics had bodily
infirmities at the same time as, and sometimes directly associated with,
their mystical experiences. Those on the 'medical diagnosis' side
sometimes use the illness to explain the experience ('wouldn't you see
strange things too if you were feverish and starving? etc.') But 'Once
upon a time I read somewhere...' that when the mind &/or spirit has
numerous/frequent mystical experiences, ie drawing nearer to the divine
and further from the body, the physical body can't stand the strain and
becomes ill. (does anyone recognize this idea? I want to use it and
can't until I can figure out where I read it.)
> > attributed also to divine or demonic intrusions. Further, if your
> > reading (and liistening) material is heavily scriptural, and your
> > approach to it is entirely pre-critical, and you are surrounded by
> > art work that looks like it came out of a vision, and if you are
> > engaged in frequent contemplative or meditative practice on top of
> > it, and your mind is not polluted by movies and television, then you
> > have all the ingredients for really great visions, it seems to me.
> > If you have nightmares about the Wizard of Oz after just watching it
> > (as I did last week), it's probably because you watched the Wizard
> > of Oz. If you have visions of the Blessed Virgin, it may be because
> > you've been looking at pictures of her, hearing stories about her,
> > thinking about her, praying to her.
Yes indeed! Of course mystics often are very careful to note that they
were NOT asleep or dreaming, or even daydreaming in our usual
absent-minded use of the word when they had their visions, eg. Hildegard
says that she was wide awake and alert and could see her ordinary
physical surroundings with her physical eyes, while she 'saw' the vision
with her 'spiritual eyes', or heard with her medieval-religion spiritual
ears etc as the case may be. Julian's vision of the bleeding cross,
similar idea. Mechtild of Hackeborn has fairly involved visions while
she is reading lessons or leading the choir.
Anna Sander
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