Since the story of human intelligence has been told there have been visions in all religions and civilizations. They have taken place up to the present day and will always do so.
Belonging as I do to the Christian West, brought up in the Roman Catholic doctrine of deliverance and salvation, knowing that this book will be read mainly by readers from the Western world, I am primarily concerned with Christian visions. But it is also true, and I would like to say so explicitly, that similar data giving rise to similar questions could be reported from Asiatic, African, Indian and South American regions. If I were to go into all these phenomena (which would be entirely possible!) the result would be a volume the size of the Manhattan phone book. However, in order that the reader may have some idea of the ubiquity of visions, I have added a VISION ALMANAC, at the end of the book.
It records facts only, but it makes clear to anyone familiar with such phenomena in the Christian sphere that visions are by no means solely a Christian, and are certainly not an exclusively Catholic, privilege.
The Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Redeemer and so His Holy Family did not concern them in the least. Why then does the Old Testament literally teem with visions? Two angels appeared to Abraham, and also to Lot before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha. Jacob, son of Isaac, who defrauded his brother Esau of his birthright with a 'mess of potage', had to wrestle with an angel near the ford at Jabbok. Moses witnessed vision after vision. The best known was on Mount Sinai where he was commanded by Yahweh to free the people from their captivity in Egypt. The story is that for forty years the Israelites followed a vision that shone like a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. (7)
Even Bileam, who has the reputation of being a false prophet and a heretic, experienced a vision of God, and Nebuchadnezzar, who certainly has not gone down in history as one of the elect, was surprised by the vision of a 'writing hand' during a banquet in Babylon. The archangel Raphael (today patron saint of chemists) appeared to the heroic Tobiases, father and son, in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. In addition to other visions, the Son of Man appeared to the pious David on a cloud in heaven - i.e. at a time when the 'Christian' Son of Man did not even exist! Solomon, King of Israel and Judah, to whom we are indebted for the 'judgments of Solomon', which are unfortunately so seldom recognized as such, saw the 'Lord' several times, according to his own account. And we must not forget that visions already occurred in Paradise. God and various angels appeared to our disobedient ancestors Adam and Eve. (8)
This list of biblical visions lays absolutely no claim to being complete.
According to legend Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of Mars. Exposed as new-born babies, they were suckled by a she-wolf and brought up by the shepherd Faustidus. One day Romulus, who is reputed to have reigned in Rome from 753-716 B. C. had a vision of Servius Tullius, son of Vulcan, who appeared in 'gleaming flames above his head'. [9] Herodotus, who lived in the fourth century B. C., was a widely travelled historian, one of whose major works was an account of the Persian wars. He relates that the Persians heard such terrible screams in the Temple of Athena Pronoia at Delphi that they fled. There are many stories about voices heard without the persons who caused them being present, 'acoustic' visions, in other words. In the temple of Aesculapius, God of healing, the god made a daily personal appearance to those seeking cures - as naturally as a medical superintendent at the beds in a modern clinic.
The famous lawgiver Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome according to legend, Minos, king of Knossos, son of Zeus and Europa, and Lycurgus, legendary lawgiver of Sparta, all received most of their creative ideas through direct visions of the gods. Aeneas, hero of the Trojan epic cycle, appeared after his death to his son Ascanius in full armour, together with his attendants. Caius Julius Caesar, born 13th July, 100 B.C., assassinated on 15th March, A.D. 44, appeared to a Thessa-lonian, whom he commissioned to inform his adoptive son Caius Octavianus of the imminent victory of Philippi.
Zoroaster, founder of the ancient Iranian religion, who emerged as a prophet in 600 B.C., received crucial passages of the Avesta (the religious text of his followers) in several visions. Mohammed, circa
570-623 A.D., founder of Islam and prophet of Allah, the one and only god, felt himself called to higher things about 610. In Mecca he preached the revelations which are recorded in the Koran and partly came to him in visions.
Obviously the founders of religions would never have managed without visions: they used them as positive authorization from the supernatural. In that way their doctrines became more effective and attractive. Their wise and clever ideas would have been sublime without calling on visions - yet the nimbus, the halo, released powerful impulses.
The holy characters in visions are generally only observed and heard by male and female 'visionaries'.
The urge to pass on their experiences turns them into heralds of the vision and symbols of the miracles that occur nolens volens soon afterwards. Like a snowball the miraculous news rapidly reaches a large number of people who seem to have been waiting for exactly this.
That was how things began in the village of Fatima in the province of Estremadura in Portugal. From
13th May to October 1917, three shepherd children had visions of Mary as the 'Divine Mother of the Rosary', who constantly urged the children to erect a chapel on the scene of the apparition. The children related the story of their visions excitedly and enthusiastically. In the summer and autumn of
1917 they were the main news item in Portugal and further a field.
At first the three children alone received communications on the 13th of every month, but it did not take long before an endless caravan of pilgrims came to Fatima. On 13th October, 1917, according to reliable reports, there were between 70, 000 and 80, 000 people waiting at the scene of the vision for a miracle to happen. And it was worth their while, for an event which was not confined to the shepherd children awaited them.
It was raining cats and dogs: the conditions for a vision of Mary were wretched. But suddenly the clouds split open, revealing a patch of clear blue sky. The sun shone brilliantly, but was not blinding.
The 'solar miracle' of Fatima had begun and everything that follows can be found in the records of the great day. The sun started to quiver and oscillate. It made movements to right and left and finally began to rotate on its axis with tremendous speed like a gigantic Catherine-wheel Cascades of green, red and violet shot out of the star and bathed the landscape in an unreal unearthly light. Ten thousand people saw it and eye-witnesses claimed that the sun stood still for a few minutes as if it wanted to give them a rest. Immediately afterwards the fantastic movement began again and so did the giant firework display of glowing lights. Observers reported that the spectacle could not be described in words. After another pause the sun dance began a third time, with the same magnificent display. The solar miracle lasted for twelve minutes altogether and was visible over a radius of twenty- five miles.
In spite of government opposition at first, Fatima became the goal of pilgrims. Today it is one of the most important places of pilgrimage in the world. On the first and last day of the visions, 13th May and 13th October, Fatima is one great garden of expectation. Thousands and thousands of people hope for a vision, a miracle: but most of all they would like to experience the solar miracle again.
Examination of the total of recorded visions shows that in ninety cases out of a hundred children are the receivers and transmitters of transcendental phenomena.
Should this objective statement be taken as an indication that young people before and during puberty develop special cerebral currents that facilitate their access to another sphere of consciousness (or infraconsciousness)? Or does native curiosity, combined with unbounded childish fantasy, open up special contacts with the astral world?
Is it possible that visions are 'projected' into a child's brain and then transferred to the brains of other children of the same age by telepathy, a medium that is no longer disputed by science? Is there any doubt that although visions cannot be photographed or objectively registered by any other apparatus, they take place subjectively in the 'limbic system' (10) of out brain, in the archaic brain tissue?
If objective control of visions by outsiders is impossible, where do the words, orders, wishes and concrete instructions come from, over and above the images that appear?
How can the absurd idea that a strange lady wants to be called the 'mysterious rose' get into a child's head? Are the children singled out by visions psychologically disposed or psychically susceptible to them? I do not think so, because the children who see visions are always described as normal healthy creatures with all the usual attributes of their age. So we are going to investigate visions seen by children, children of our time.
