The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) by George Tyrrell
page 12 of 265 (04%)
page 12 of 265 (04%)
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His meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. Wherefore showed He it thee? For
love." Having thus sketched the circumstances of the revelations, we may now address ourselves to their character and substance. There is nothing to favour and everything to disfavour the notion that Mother Juliana was an habitual visionary, or was the recipient of any other visions, than those which she beheld in her thirty-first year; and of these, she tells us herself, the whole sixteen took place within a few hours. "Now have I told you of fifteen showings, ... of which fifteen showings, the first began early in the morning about the hour of four, ... each following the other till it was noon of the day or past, ... and after this the Good Lord showed me the sixteenth revelation on the night following." Speaking of them all as one, she tells us: "And from the time it was showed I desired oftentimes to wit what was in our Lord's meaning; and fifteen years after and more I was answered in ghostly understanding, saying thus: 'What! wouldst thou wit thy Lord's meaning in this thing? Wit it well: Love was His meaning.'" But this "ghostly understanding" can hardly be pressed into implying another revelation of the evidently supernormal type. We rather insist on this point, as indicating the habitual healthiness of Mother Juliana's soul--a quality which is also abundantly witnessed by the unity and coherence of the doctrine of her revelations, which bespeaks a mind well-knit together, and at harmony with itself. The hysterical mind is one in which large tracts of consciousness seem to get detached from the main body, and to take the control of the subject for the time being, giving rise to the phenomena rather foolishly called double or multiple "personality." This is a disease proper to the |
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