Religious Experience - Visions and Voices

Both visions and voices share certain characteristics with other experiences and descriptions overlap.

• For instance, Isaiah's experience is a vision and is numinous.
• St Theresa's vision described below is also a mystical experience.

Visions

• Visions occur in a variety of forms and in various faiths.

St Teresa's Vision

• I saw a Christ at my side - or, to put it better, I was conscious of Him, for neither with the eyes of the body or the soul did I see anything.

• Some thinkers refer to these as intellectual visions.
• The vision is not the same as seeing an external object with the eyes.
• It is instead a clear vision in the mind's eye.
• Religious believers who have these types of vision would argue that they are far too profound to be confused with the imagination.

Voices

• One dramtatic type of religious experience is the hearing of voices. These…