Visions
Plato: "Has been signified to me by oracles, visions, and in every way in which the will of divine power was ever intimated to anyone." Carl Jung believed that images were hidden in out feelings, so to speak, and the images could give us insight into the experiences causing the feelings. Feeling, effect and mood can lead us to their source with the image as a whole.
One process that is frequently used to locate images in feelings is to allow images to bubble up from within us onto an imaginary screen inside our head. Sitting quietly with our eyes closed, we can pay attention to the parade of images, looking for images that consistently appear and seen to express the feelings. This process allows the images to be unreflective and spontaneous.
Saint Teresa had visions about God, some imaginative and with actual images, and others simply intellectual, as she called them. She was left with a deep conviction concerning the grandeur of God. Another kind of ecstasy or rapture, Teresa calls the flight of the spirit. It is such that the spirit seems to go forth from the body in imaginative visions. She says more is learned in an instant than years of study could produce.
If you have had visions of being part of the end-time army of God in these last days, know that many have had the same visions. You need to know that there will be millions of us and the Lord is preparing His army now. They are recruited from the ranks of the seven spirits of God which comprise all the branches of Christianity. Once we have brought ourselves to the unity of speaking the same thing in humility and love, we will be at His command to go out into the streets and call the church for the wedding feast. Do not go ahead of God's timing but make sure that you are filled with the spirit and that you have love for the brethren. Especially take your message to the poor and those that are also called. Get your loved ones out of Babylonian confusion by your example.
The church and the saints themselves teach that neither voices, nor visions, nor dreams, nor raptures, nor levitation, nor stigmata, nor prolonged fasting, nor ecstasies are integral to Christianity. Neither are they necessarily signs of holiness. They can be signs of mental illness and often are signs of weakness or immaturity in the spiritual life. God may however speak His will through those who allow the images and inner voices to speak through them. Along with dreams and projections, feelings are an important source of imagery. In particular, three things are impressed upon the person: knowledge of the grandeur of God; self knowledge and humility; little esteem of earthly things.
[09, 34, 66, 90]
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