The Faith of the Millions | Page 9

no more than a strong inclination compatible with liberty; at other times it amounts to such a "fixing" of the practical judgment as would ordinarily result from a determination of the power of choice--if that were not a contradiction. Better to say, it is a taking of the matter out of the jurisdiction of choice, by the creation of an _idée fixe_ [7] in the subject's mind.
Turning now to "revelation" in the stricter sense of a preternatural enlightenment of the mind, it might conceivably be either by way of a real accretion of knowledge--an addition to the contents of the mind--or else by way of manipulating contents already there, as we ourselves do by reminiscence, by rumination, comparison, analysis, inference. Thus we can conceive the mind being consciously controlled in these operations, as it were, by a foreign will; being reminded of this or that; being shown new consequences, applications, and relations of truths already possessed.
When, however, there is a preternatural addition to the sum total of the mind's knowledge, we can conceive the communication to be effected through the outer senses, as by visions seen (real or symbolic), or words heard; or through the imagination--pictorial, symbolic, or verbal; visual or auditory; or, finally, in the very reason and intelligence itself, whose ideas are embodied in these images and signs, and to whose apprehension they are all subservient.
Now from all this tedious division and sub-division it may perhaps be clear in how many different senses the words of such a professed revelation as Mother Juliana has left on record can be regarded as preternatural utterances; or rather, in how many different ways she herself may have considered them such, and wished them so to be considered. Indeed, as we shall see, she has done a good deal more to determine this, in regard to the various parts of her record, than most have done, and it is for that reason that we have taken the opportunity to open up the general question. Such a record might then be, either wholly or in part:
(a) The work of religious "inspiration" or genius, in the sense in which rationalists use the word, levelling the idea down to the same plane as that of artistic inspiration.
(b) Or else it might be "inspired" as mystic philosophy or ontologism uses the expression, when it ascribes all natural insight to a more or less directly divine enlightenment.
(c) Or, taking the word more strictly as implying the influence of a distinct personal agency over the soul of the writer, it might be that the record simply expresses an attempted interpretation, an imaginary embodiment, of some blind preternatural stirring of the writer's affections--analogous to the romances and dreams created in the imagination at the first awakening of the amatory affections.
(d) Or, the matter being in no way from preternatural sources, the strong and perhaps irresistible impulse to record and publish it, might be preternatural.
(e) Or (in addition to or apart from such an impulse), it might be a record of certain truths already contained implicitly in the writer's mind, but brought to remembrance or into clear recognition, not by the ordinary free activity of reason, but, as it were, by an alien will controlling the mind.
(f) Or, if really new truths or facts are communicated to the mind from without, this may be effected in various ways: (i) By the way of verbal "inspiration," as when the very words are received apparently through the outer senses; or else put together in the imagination. (ii) Or, the matter is presented pictorially (be it fact or symbol) to the outer senses or to the imagination; and then described or "word-painted" according to the writer's own ability. (iii) Or, the truth is brought home directly to the intelligence; and gets all its imaginative and verbal clothing from the recipient.
Many other hypotheses are conceivable, but most will be reducible to one or other of these. We may perhaps add that, when the revelation is given for the sake of others, this purpose might be frustrated, were not a substantial fidelity of expression and utterance also secured. This would involve, at least, that negative kind of guidance of the tongue or pen, known technically as "assistance."
Mother Juliana gives us some clue in regard to her own revelations where she says: [8] "All this blessed showing of our Lord God was showed in three parts; that is to say, by bodily sight; and by words formed in my understanding; and by ghostly sight. For the bodily sight, I have said as I saw, as truly as I can" (that is, the appearances were, she believed, from God, but the description of them was her own). "And for the words I have said them right as our Lord showed them to me" (for here nothing was