Saint Teresa continues, “Thus does God, when he raises a soul to union with Himself, suspend that natural action of all her faculties. She neither sees, hears, nor understands so long as the union lasts. But, this time is always short, and seems even shorter than it actually is. God establishes himself in the interior of this soul in such a way that when she returns to herself, it is wholly impossible for her to doubt that she has been in God, and God in her. This truth remains so strongly impressed on her that, even though many years should pass without the condition returning, she can neither forget the favor she received, nor doubt its reality.”
L.T. – This last paragraph closely describes my own same experience that I wrote of on chapter
MIRACLES in the second account titled “More on Seeing Heaven.” My experience came about quite unexpectedly when I was sixteen years old during a conversation with a friend. I had asked her why she believed in God. I had not been meditating. I didn’t even know what meditation was then. This is all quite surprising to me; that is, to read of so many other’s experiences much like the ones I’ve had. Other individuals’ similar accounts in James’ book use the word “transport,” and in my description of the experience, I refer to the sensation of traveling at a surreal, not at all earthly, rate of speed.
James alleges that the kinds of truth communicable in mystical ways, whether these be sensible or supersensible, are various. Some of them relate to this world. For example: visions of the future, the “reading of hearts” [whereby a Saint is able to read into the heart and conscience of an individual and then be able to guide the person towards a greater union with God], the sudden understanding of texts, and knowledge of distant events. But, the most important revelations are theological or metaphysical.
In a footnote here, James mentions that he omits cases of visual and auditory hallucination, verbal and graphic automatisms [as in automatic writing and channeling] and such marvels as “levitation, stigmatization, and the miraculous healing of disease. These phenomena, which mystics have often demonstrated, have not mystical significance according to the author. For, they occur without any “consciousness of illumination” whatsoever and, they often occur in persons of non-mystical minds. Consciousness of illumination is, for us, the essential mark of mystical states.