Medieval Christian Visionary Texts in Light of Falun Gong
Emily E. Myers
(emyers2@swarthmore.edu )
Religion 14B
December 15, 2000
Swarthmore College
Visions are a part of medieval Christianity from the 4th century to the 14th. Scholarship has therefore attempted to explain the cause of visionary experience, often dismissing it as a result of physical illness, mental illness, popular spiritual trends, and so on. What does not fit into these explanations for the cause of visions is the remarkable similarity in holy persons' own descriptions for how their visions come about, and what we know about them and their mental and physical health. So we are left wondering how we can maintain the integrity of medieval Christian holy persons' experiences, while at the same time understanding them in acceptable modern terms. To do this, we need to step outside the box, and let spiritual texts speak for themselves. We must enter the spiritual world to see what insights it has to offer.
First I will evaluate the validity of the three above theories, then will note common characteristics of visionaries' experiences, and will finally offer a compelling theory that may explain these similaritiesa theory that combines Eastern, Western, and mystical or spiritual perspectives. This theory is that of the founder and teacher of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi[1]. His idea for how visions work not only accounts for the similarities in visionary texts across these hundreds of years, but explains them in terms that maintain the integrity of visionary experience while at the same time allowing a modern medical perspective to inform our understanding of it, making it more plausible for the modern reader.
Let us first examine the claim about illness as the cause. It is said of Hildegard of Bingen, for example, that her visions came from migraine headaches. While illness was common to some medieval Christian visionaries, such as Hildegard, it certainly was not the case for all of them. Explaining visions in terms of illness may be pleasantly acceptable to those outside of the medieval spiritual world, but because it cannot explain anywhere near all visionary experience, it is questionable. This theory becomes even more problematic in light of the fact that, not only were many medieval Christian visionaries not ill, but some had a heightened level of physical existence, with even a physical immunity to decay and degeneration, or an immunity to pain and injury. For example, at the end of St. Antony's very long life, it was written of him that "in all respects he was to the end untouched by decay,"[2] suggesting a sort of physical invincibility. This visionary was not only not illness-ridden, but was even untouched by aging. In addition, he healed others of their illnesses, rather than being stricken with them himself. The bodies of many medieval Christian visionaries are not subnormal, but supernormal in certain respects.
We find the same problem in the theory of mental illness. It is certainly possible that some visionaries experienced mental illness, but others are described as demonstrating a higher level of mental capacity. By no means, therefore, can we apply this theory across the board. The Book of Margery Kempe tells us, for example, that Margery could foretell future events, such as the time when she foretold how much longer someone would live and how his death would be, and it turned out just as she had predicted[3]. A mind with that capacity is not functioning below the normal level, but high above.
Medieval visionary experiences are not limited to one gender, age, or century. They are clearly not all a result of illness, delusion, or social factors. What is even more telling is the similarities in medieval texts' descriptions of how visions worksimilarities which span across hundreds of years. From St. Antony in the 4th century to Margery Kempe in the 14th, the descriptions bear striking resemblance. Why not accept the validity of their experiences, and attempt to understand these from within the world of spirituality? Because the above theories do not correlate with the experiences of all, or even most, visionaries, we are left to look at what those who experience the visions themselves say about how their visions work, and to use that as our basis for understanding them. Many texts about or by medieval holy persons have described the mechanism of visions in strikingly similar ways. They also share many commonalties with the description given by Li Hongzhi of how visions work, though his descriptions are much more detailed and thorough. Perhaps we can better understand visionary experiences from Li Hongzhi's perspective, as it is modern and somewhat scientific, but at the same time comes from someone who knows visions and physical transformation on a personal and experiential level.
In most of the visionaries' texts, they differentiate between the physical eyes and the spiritual one(s). Because most all of them make a distinction between the two, they must have felt that the difference was significant. In her Scivias, Hildegard of Bingen writes: "we cannot see [God] with the outer and carnal vision,"[4] and says that we see him "with the eyesof the inner self."[5] She makes a clear distinction between the two, and designates different objects of vision for each. St. Antony once told a blind man that he should not be troubled by the loss of his bodily eyes, because he had "the eyes wherewith angels see, by which God is seen."[6] In Catherine of Siena's Dialogues, she distinguishes between "bodily sight" and "spiritual vision," the "mind's eye" and the "bodily eyes"[7]; in Angela of Foligno it is the "eyes of the body" vs. the "eyes of the spirit"[8]; for Margery Kempe it is the "bodily eyes"[9] vs. the "spiritual eye"[10]. This is significant because it is possible to imagine someone explain visions by claiming that their own (bodily) eyes were blessed with or developed a certain supernormal function, but not one of the texts we have read does this. They make clear that usually when they see spiritual or religious things, they are not seeing them with the same eyes as they see the rest of the world. Somehow they all intuitively recognized the existence of another eye or set of eyes. Attributing this to coincidence would be to miss something significant in these texts, something that may tell us about what goes in inside the body to enable visions. In addition, many of the texts attach a singular number to the eye with which they can see spiritual things, or God. Julian of Norwich calls it "the eye of our understanding,"[11] Catherine of Siena calls it the "mind's eye",[12] and Margery Kempe calls it her "spiritual eye"[13].
Li Hongzhi, founder and teacher of Falun Gong, describes this eye in similar ways. He also distinguishes between the eyes by which persons can see physical objects, and the eye with which persons can see "the scenes existing in other dimensions." Li calls the eyes of the body the "physical eyes" or "flesh eyes"[15], and the other eye he calls the "Celestial Eye"[16].
In China, this Celestial Eye, or Third Eye[17], is discussed widely, particularly in qigong circles. One of the things that has made Li Hongzhi's qigong the most popular one in China is his in-depth explanations of things that other qigong masters only scratch the surface of. Imagine a culture in which the idea of this spiritual eye is widely acceptedit makes sense that he who could explain it most thoroughly would be highly regarded.
What is most interesting about his explanation, though, is that he draws on modern medicine to make sense of how one can see through the Celestial Eye. He writes,
Modern medical dissection has discovered that the front section of the pineal gland is equipped with the complete structure of the human eye. Because it grows inside one's skull, it is thus said to be a vestigial eye. We in the world of cultivation have reservations about whether it is a vestigial eye. Yet modern medicine has, after all, recognized that there is an eye in the middle of the human brain. The passageway that we open targets exactly that location, and this happens to agree completely with the understanding of modern medicine.[18]
Medical researchers have indeed been puzzled at the purpose of this "folded retina"[19], inside the center of the brain, or the reason that the pineal gland has a "complete system for optical signal transduction"[20]. Swarthmore Biology students are taught about this eye in their classes, but are presented with little to no explanation of its function[21].
But Li does explain its function, and that he does so in modern medical terms is both fascinating and compelling. This is a plausible explanation for how visions come about, especially in comparison to the other theories presented here. For one, it allows holy persons' experiences some validity and affirmation, calling their visionary experience connected to an objective reality in the human body. Perhaps this eye in the brain is indeed what all of the holy persons' descriptions trace back to; there must be some reason that medieval visionaries recognized different sets of eyes, perhaps some intuitive feeling. It is unlikely that it is coincidental that each of the texts above describe the workings of visionary experience in such similar ways. Extraordinary experience cannot be fully understood in ordinary terms.
What is more, the similarities do not stop there, at only the fact that Li and medieval visionaries recognize the existence of a separate eye for seeing things other than physical objects in our world. Both Hildegard of Bingen and Li Hongzhi say that this sight occurs through openings in the bodyHildegard calls these "open places"[22], and Li cites the Buddha's School's claim that each pore is an eye, and the Tao school's idea that each acupuncture point is an eye[23]. In her Scivias, Hildegard has a picture of a being covered with eyes, and explains it in allegorical terms[24]. Li describes a similar phenomenon[25] and explains it in detail, describing how at a high level of cultivation, all of the pores of the body can become eyes[26].
What is significant about Li's explanations of these things is that he takes the description of how visions work to another level, giving the details of how the process occurs in the body, and bringing in a medical perspective as well[27]. His explanations are far more compelling than those who wish to understand this phenomenon from the outside, and from a modern Western perspective, as they fit with visionaries' own descriptions, and hold true for more texts than the other theories. It is difficult to understand ancient things from a 20th century perspective, but if we take into account the ideas of those who come from a culture that accepts the existence of this eye and the reality of visionary experience, we are able to greatly open up the possibilities for understanding how this works. True or not, his explanations tell us that aspiritual, ordinary scholarly ways of explaining extraordinary spiritual phenomena are severely limited. If we open up our minds, we may find that those within spiritual traditions from other cultures may have a lot to offer in terms of insight into traditions from our own culture[28].
References
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Yokoyama, S., Genes?Cells, 1 (9): 787, 1996.
Max, M. et. al., J. Biol Chem., 273 (41): 26820, 1998.
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