Hallucinations, Delusions, and Religious Visions

A hallucination is a false perception of sensory experience. A delusion is a fixed, false belief. A hallucination, then, is seeing a person standing at the door when nobody else present sees the person. A delusion is believing that a person, presumably invisible, is standing at the door even when one’s eyes see nothing.

Religious visions are harder to define because the definition depends upon assumptions one makes about reality. The Catholic Church, for example, distinguishes between natural and supernatural visions, with the latter being “due to the direct intervention of a power superior to man.” (1) Psychiatry has traditionally viewed all visions as “natural” distortions of reality, that is, generated by a large number of neurological, psychological, or medical processes. (2)

This essay examines psychological and theological perspectives on hallucinations, delusions, and religious visions.

Hallucinations and Delusions with Religious Content

The inclination to treat alleged supernatural visions as natural manifestations derives in part from the frequency of religious visions among the mentally ill. Although nearly all clinicians who have worked with psychotic populations have encountered religious hallucinations (RH) and/or delusions (RD), a comprehensive review of 55 empirical studies with data found so much variation that the author concluded:

RD and RH are commonly encountered in major mental illness, albeit prevalence varies according to time, place and personal religiosity. Comparisons between studies, and accurate estimates of prevalence, are hampered by lack of clear working definitions of exactly what constitutes a “religious” delusion or hallucination and also by failure to obtain data on religious affiliation of research subjects. (3)

Despite the author’s reluctance to draw firm conclusions regarding the prevalence of religious hallucinations and delusions, inspection of his data reveals that the frequency among studies varied between 20% and 60%. This is a wide range; however it does lend credence to the clinical impression that a large percentage of hallucinatory and delusional behaviors in the mentally ill have religious content.

Clinical impressions matter because they support the fundamental assumption of contemporary, secular society, namely, philosophical naturalism, which posits that the natural world is all that exists, and that all phenomena can be explained without recourse to supernatural or metaphysical explanations. Therefore, religious visions will usually be dismissed out of hand because of their association with psychopathology. This association, however, is not as firm as was once believed.

Hallucinations and Delusions in the General Population

The reflexively assumed link between hallucinations and psychopathology might not have developed had professionals paid attention to a survey conducted by H. Sidgewick of the Society for Psychical Research at the end of the nineteenth century. (4) Bentall describes the survey:

In total, 7,717 men and 7,599 women were interviewed by a large team of collaborators to the project. Although no attempt was made to obtain a truly random sample, anyone with obvious signs of mental or physical illness was excluded from the study. Of the total sample, 7.8% of men and 12% of women reported at least one vivid hallucinatory experience, the most common type being a visual hallucination of a living person who was not present at the time of the experience. Hallucinations with a religious or supernatural content also were recorded. (5)

The Society conducted a similar survey 50 years later (6) and got similar results. Among 1519 participants, 14.3% reported having had hallucinations.

Bentall says that McKellar (7) “found that 125 out of 500 ‘normal’ people questioned reported having had at least one hallucinatory experience.” (8)  According to Bentall, Tien (9) found that “the lifetime prevalence of hallucinations in the ECA [Epidemiological Catchment Area] study was 13.0% at the first assessment and 11.1% at the second, figures which did not differ significantly from Sidgewick’s findings.” (10)

The prevalence of hallucinations among normal populations, then, is much higher than the prevalence of psychosis. Writing in Psychology Today, Ocklenberg (11) reports on a study by Aynsworth et al. (12)

In the study, data from 466 volunteers with a mean age of about 21 years were collected by the scientists. Each volunteer filled out a questionnaire called MUSEQ (short for "Multimodal Unusual Sensory Experiences Questionnaire"). The MUSEQ contained questions like “I Have seen lights, flashes, or other shapes that other people could not see.”

For each question, volunteers had to indicate whether they had that experience "never," "hardly ever," "rarely," "occasionally," or "frequently." . . . The results of the study strongly suggest that visual hallucinations are surprisingly common in healthy people.

Overall, 84.8 percent of the volunteers that took part in the study reported having experienced some form of anomalous visual experiences in their life. More than a third of them (37.8 percent) reported that they had experienced an actual visual hallucination similar to what a patient with a psychotic disorder may experience. When the scientists analyzed the additional questions of whether an experience would agree with a clinical definition of visual hallucinations, about 17.4 percent of volunteers had experienced a hallucination that met these criteria. . . . most volunteers indicated that they were either tired or their minds were "playing tricks on them." However, some volunteers also reported that they felt the hallucination may be a threat to their mental health and were quite distressed by it. (13)

Linszen et al. (14) gave the Questionnaire for Psychotic Experiences (QPE) to 10,448 participants varying in age from 14 to 88. Their results are substantially higher than previous surveys, which, according to Linszen et al., found that prevalence rates in the general population fall between 6% and 15%. Linszen et al. attribute their higher prevalence findings to the “broad definition of hallucinations we employed, the low-key way of profiling them (i.e., as very common perceptual phenomena), and the low threshold for reporting on their presence through an online survey.” (15) The researchers found that

auditory hallucinations (AH) were reported most frequently, with 29.4% of the participants (n = 3086) having experienced them within the past month, followed by visual hallucinations (VH) (21.5%, n = 2248), tactile hallucinations (TH) (19.9%, n = 2207) and olfactory hallucinations (OH) (17.3%, n = 1807). A more recent experience of hallucinations was significantly associated with female gender, younger age, and a lower education level. (16)

Approximately 10% of participants experiencing hallucinations were convinced that the sounds or images they perceived were real. About 20% of participants with hallucinations associated the hallucinatory content with a past distressing experience. The researchers did not report on any religious content associated with participants’ hallucinations.

Regarding children, Dominguez and Garralda report that

recent epidemiological studies of child populations found surprisingly high rates (about 10%) of hallucinatory experiences. These hallucinatory phenomena are most likely to occur in the absence of psychiatric disorder and are usually simpler, less elaborate and less distressing than those observed in children with psychiatric disorders. (17)

A meta-analysis of 73 studies of psychosis, with which delusions and hallucinations are associated, found that “the pooled median point and 12-month prevalence for persons was 3.89 and 4.03 per 1000 respectively; and the median lifetime prevalence was 7.49 per 1000.” (18) [A finding of 10 per 1000 would be one percent of the population.]

Thus, the research on hallucinations and delusions in normal populations suggests that the old assumption that religious visions must be an indicator of psychopathology is false. The rate of psychosis is approximately one percent of the population; but at least 10 and perhaps as many as 30 percent of people in the general population report having had at least one hallucination. Although religious themes are common in hallucinations and delusions, the research evidence does not reveal why that would be so.

Lurhman et al. (19) propose an interesting theory to explain why some people have hallucinations and delusions while others do not. Their theory also suggests an explanation of why some exhibit religious content while others do not. The research included over 2,000 participants in the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu. The researchers use the term “experiences of spiritual presence” to refer to a variety of spiritual experiences that would include visions and hearing voices. They introduce the concept of “porosity,” which refers to

the idea that the boundary between “the mind” and “the world” is permeable. Intuitions that wishes or curses might come true, that strong emotions might linger in a room to affect others, or that some people might be able to read minds are examples of porosity that might be familiar to (although perhaps not endorsed by) many secular Western readers. Porosity appears to be an aspect of folk beliefs about the mind that varies quite considerably across cultural settings. (20)

“Absorption” refers to

an individual’s personal tendency to be engrossed in sensory or imagined events. People with a greater capacity for absorption tend to “lose themselves” in their sensory experiences and are capable of conjuring vivid imagined events. . . . In the psychological literature, absorption is commonly considered to be a personality trait . . . Among US adults, absorption has been associated with an orientation toward fantasy and artistic pursuits, intense mystical experiences in response to psychedelics or placebo brain stimulation, and strong feelings of presence and transcendence when confronted with natural beauty, virtual reality, or music (19, 20). Our work in an American charismatic Christian church found that congregants who reported more vivid experiences (e.g., that they experienced God in dialogue or heard God’s voice audibly) tended to score higher on measures of absorption. (21)

Thus, cultural differences in porosity may contribute to an openness to spiritual experience, while the trait of absorption may make some individuals more likely than others to have spiritual experiences, regardless of culture. The higher than expected rate of hallucinations among normal populations may, especially in our secular culture, reflect the psychological capacity for absorption, rather than psychopathology. A culture, such as the charismatic Christian subculture that Lurhman et al. studied, may welcome religious visions, while psychological factors, such as the capacity for absorption, may determine which people have visions.

Hallucinations and Drugs

Hallucinogenic drugs

. . . may be defined as substances that create gross distortions in perception without causing loss of consciousness when administered in low doses (not toxic overdoses). These distortions frequently include hallucinations. Such compounds also are likely to exert profound effects on mood, thought, and behavior, which may resemble the disturbances seen in naturally occurring psychoses. (22)

According to West, there are four classes of these drugs: indole alkaloid derivatives (e.g., psilocybin, LSD) piperidine derivatives (e.g., cocaine, ketamine), phenylethylamines (e.g., mescaline, amphetamines, adrenochrome), and cannabinols (e.g., hashish, marijuana). When drugs - or sensory deprivation - impair the normal sensory input’s integrative or inhibiting power, information may be disinhibited.

The theory thus holds that a sustained level and variety of sensory input normally is required to inhibit the emergence of percepts or memory traces from within the brain itself. When effective (attention-commanding) sensory input decreases below a certain threshold, there may be a release into awareness of previously recorded perceptions through the disinhibition of the brain circuits that represent them. If a general level of cortical arousal persists to a sufficient degree, these released perceptions can enter awareness and be experienced as fantasies, visions, dreams, or hallucinations. The greater the level of arousal, the more vivid the hallucinations will be. (23)

Various drugs have induced hallucinations in religious rituals since Neolithic times. Their primary use has been to facilitate healing, predict the future, communicate with spirits, and enhance life-event ceremonies.

Traces of ritualistic hallucinogen use were found in many belief systems in ancient cults and cultures: The sacred Soma drink is mentioned in the Indian Vedas, Teonana´catl (literally, “divine mushroom”), morning glory seeds were consumed in Meso American cultures, the ancient Greek Eleusinian mysteries used the enigmatic Kykeon drink, Siberian shamans became inebriated with the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria), and so on (Schultes & Hofmann 1979). There are also numerous examples of contemporary sacramental drug use, such as the Native American Church using peyote cacti legally, and several ayahuasca based religious groups spreading out from South America. It is even hypothesized that the common root of many ancient religions could be found in Paleolithic supernatural and animistic beliefs that were perhaps based on hallucinogen-induced thoughts and visions of shamanic practices (La Barre 1979). (24)

The spiritual dimension of hallucinogenic drugs became a topic of mass interest when beatniks, hippies, and intellectuals began to praise drugs like mescaline and LSD in the 1950s and 1960s. Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, reported on his mescaline “trip” in the spring of 1953.

I took my pill at eleven. An hour and a half later I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. . . I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation – the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.

“Is it agreeable?” somebody asked. . .

“Neither agreeable nor disagreeable,” I answered. “It just is.”

Istigkeit – wasn’t that the word Meister Eckhart liked to use? “Is-ness.” The Being of Platonic philosophy (25).. . .

“This is how one ought to see, how things really are.” And yet there were reservations. For if one always saw like this, one would never want to do anything else. Just looking, just being the divine Not-self of flower, of book, of chair, of flannel. That would be enough. But in that case what about other people? What about human relations? In the recording of that morning’s conversations I find the question constantly repeated, “What about human relations?” (26)

When under the drug’s influence, hallucinogenic drug users, like psychotics, show some psychological fragmentation and confusion. Psychotics, however, are much more likely to experience auditory hallucinations, and their hallucinations tend to cause distress, although they are sometimes pleasant and some people learn to cope with their hallucinations. “Bad trips” are not uncommon among hallucinogen users, but the experience is generally positive. Sometimes, as in Huxley’s case, the experience is a mystical perception of a spiritual dimension that seems more real than ordinary life.

Religion scholar Huston Smith (27) argues that hallucinogenic mystical experiences are indistinguishable from naturally occurring mystical experiences. He further maintains, however, that religious experience is but one part of religious living, and that an undue focus on experience may cause one to ignore important aspects of religious life.

That is perhaps why all major religions frown upon drug use. Drug-induced spiritual experience is idiosyncratic and demands only that the partaker of the drug survive the temporary altered state. In traditional religions, on the other hand, spiritual development is a long process that requires discipline, thought, prayer, and patience. Perhaps the appeal of drug-induced spiritual “highs” reflects contemporary culture’s preference for the quick and easy. Popping a pill and getting through 6 to 12 hours of altered consciousness is a lot easier than spending thousands of hours in meditation, prayer, and study.

Smith quotes from Kapleau (28) to affirm the importance of discipline in spiritual development:

. . . the vision of oneness attained in enlightenment . . . in time becomes clouded and eventually fades into a pleasant memory instead of remaining an omnipresent reality shaping our daily life.... To be able to live in accordance with what the Mind's eye has revealed through satori requires, like the purification of character and the development of personality, a ripening period of zazen. (29)

It is possible, of course, that religious visions, like drug-induced hallucinations, may have biological explanations and that chemically induced religious experiences may have given rise to religious beliefs early in human history. However, as William James contends, this kind of medical materialism seems blind to the fact that its own theories can be “explained away” by finding correlated biological events.

But now, I ask you, how can such an existential account of facts of mental history decide in one way or another upon their spiritual significance? According to the general postulate of psychology just referred to, there is not a single one of our states of mind, high or low, healthy or morbid, that has not some organic process as its condition. Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see “the liver” determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters the blood that percolates it, we get the methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind. So of all our raptures and our drynesses, our longings and paintings, our questions and beliefs. They are equally organically founded, be they religious or of non-religious content. (30)

The fundamental question, of course, is whether mystical and other religious experiences point to something objectively real or are mere oddities arising from human biology. In other words, are they illusions and fantasies or revelations?

Religious Visions: Secular Perspectives

A secular, atheistic perspective on religious visions is easy to summarize: It is all fantasy. There are, to use the old Greek phrase metaphorically, only “atoms and the void.” Any talk about supernatural events is invention, perhaps fueled by oddities in the human nervous system that make some people more likely than others to have religious hallucinations, delusions, and other imaginings.

Neurotheology, or spiritual neuroscience, seeks to find biological explanations of religious experiences. In 2017 the International Society for Science & Religion (ISSR) issued a statement, “Neuroscience and Religious Faith.” (31) The document identifies four purposes of research on neuroscience and religion.

First, there are attempts to identify neurophysiological processes that are unique to religion, much as the Broca’s area is thought to be vital to language. Persinger, (32) for example, used the Koren Helmet (developed by Stanley Koren, and dubbed “the God Helmet” by journalists) to produce weak magnetic fields that purportedly influenced the temporal lobes of subjects and artificially induced mystical and other religious experiences. (33) Other researchers, however, have asserted that Persinger’s focus on the temporal lobes as the “source” of religious experience is inaccurate or at best an oversimplification. Swedish researchers replicated Persinger’s study but with a double-blind procedure:

We found no evidence for any effects of the magnetic fields, neither in the entire group, nor in individuals high in suggestibility. Because the personality characteristics significantly predicted outcomes, suggestibility may account for previously reported effects. Our results strongly question the earlier claims of experiential effects of weak magnetic fields. (34)

When cloistered nuns who had reported feelings of union with God were placed in an MRI and asked to recall their experience, multiple parts of the brain were involved. (35) During a Buddhist man’s deep meditation, radioactive tracers in his bloodstream revealed that the temporal lobe was activated but that the parietal lobes were almost completely inactive, thereby again challenging the notion of a “god spot” in the brain. (36)

A second line of research looks not for a simple “switch” for religious experience but for a pattern of brain activity that serves as a “signature” of spiritual experiences. Identification of clear brain patterns, however, has eluded researchers. Some studies, for example, find increased frontal lobe activities, while others find the opposite.

A third approach assumes that spiritual experiences are not neurologically unique and looks for similarities with other cognitive functions. Lastly, some research explores how changes in neurophysiology, e.g., due to genetics, hormonal changes, drugs, disease, trauma, affect the expression of religious experiences.

Most researchers, knowingly or not, approach this subject with an assumed reductionist philosophy, i.e., that all mental experience can be explained as biological or chemical processes. The ISSR statement advances an alternative view to reductionism:

. . . all complex systems made up of highly interactive parts (such as neurons) develop emergent properties of the whole that are based on patterns of organization. These emergent properties are causes in their own right, without necessitating any new sources of physical energy (and therefore not violating the principles of physics). These causes emerge from the specific manner in which a particular whole system is organized, and how this organization interacts with its environment. Therefore, such emergent causes are not entirely due to the nature of the parts themselves. The organization of neurons in a brain allows persons to cause things in ways that neurons cannot. (37)

In summary, whether one’s worldview denies or accepts the supernatural, the research in this area is not likely to compel one to reconsider one’s fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality. Some seem to think that finding a neurological explanation for a mental experience such as a religious vision “explains away” the experience. But, according to the materialist viewpoint, all mental experiences can theoretically be explained in terms of biology. Does that mean that the monitor on which I read these words doesn’t exist because my experience of reading can be reduced to a sequence of biological events? The proponent of religion, then, may simply reply that God gave us brains to help us interact with reality, including the spiritual realities that we struggle to discern because our capacity to perceive the supernatural is limited, much as a person with poor vision cannot determine if a nearby shape is a tree, a bush, or a bear.

Religious Visions: Christian Perspectives

Since the dawn of Christianity, theologians have disagreed about important matters, such as the epistemological status of religious visions. Religious visions, whether auditory or visual, are a subcategory of private revelations. These should be distinguished, according to Christian theologians, from the public revelations inherent in Scripture and Jesus’s life, teachings, and resurrection.

Bouma says that Catholics and Protestants agree that God has revealed himself and that “Scripture is the God-breathed, written revelation of God.” (38) Protestants and Catholics disagree about Tradition’s role in revealing God.

“Protestants believe Scripture is all we need.” (39) With regard to tradition, Protestants “take their cues from the early church who equated tradition with the ‘rule of faith,’ a summary of the essential doctrines based on Scripture.” (40)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees with Protestants about God’s public revelation:

God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant for ever. The Son is his Father's definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him. (41)

As Bouma notes, the Catechism’s view of tradition differs from Protestants, as do the Catholic Church’s methods for dealing with supposed private revelations. The Catechism states:

66 . . . Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.

67 Throughout the ages, there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church.

Christian faith cannot accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfilment. (42)

The Pentecostal and Charismatic movements muddy the Protestant-Catholic distinctions made above.

Pentecostalism eventually spawned hundreds of new denominations, including large groups such as the Assemblies of God and the Church of God in Christ, both in the United States and elsewhere. There are over 279 million Pentecostals worldwide, and the movement is growing in many parts of the world, especially the global South. Since the 1960s, Pentecostalism has increasingly gained acceptance from other Christian traditions, and Pentecostal beliefs concerning Spirit baptism and spiritual gifts have been embraced by non-Pentecostal Christians in Protestant and Catholic churches through the Charismatic Movement. Together, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 500 million adherents.[131] (43)

Pentecostal and charismatic movements gave birth to and are similar to neo-Charismatics, who are

now more numerous than Pentecostals (first wave) and charismatics (second wave) combined, owing to the remarkable growth of postdenominational and independent charismatic groups.[166]. . . . Neo-charismatics believe in and stress the post-Biblical availability of gifts of the Holy Spirit, including glossolalia, healing, and prophecy. They practice laying on of hands and seek the "infilling" of the Holy Spirit. (44)

So far as I have been able to determine, research has not established the prevalence of visual or auditory visions among groups that encourage and expect the “infilling of the Holy Spirit.” Many private revelations, however, take the form of prophecy or auditory sensations, e.g., the Christians in the study by Lurhmann et al., who “experienced God in dialogue or heard God’s voice audibly.” (45)

Protestants and Orthodox Christians tend to be more skeptical than Catholics of private revelations, especially those concerning the Virgin Mary. The Catholic Church, nevertheless, has a rigorous process for evaluating private revelations. A Wikipedia article provides a long list of “private revelations which the Catholic Church has judged to be in all probability (not infallibly or with absolute certainty)[1] from God (constat de supernaturalitate),[2] and has legalized [sic] to be published and authorized devotion to them.” (46)

The late Father Benedict Groeschel published a practical guide on reported revelations. (47) Such a guide is needed because, although some private revelations can illuminate, others can mislead, especially those that result from a hunger for special experiences or attention. Groeschel says:

I have drawn much from the standard work, The Graces of Interior Prayer by Father Augustin Poulain, S.J.48 This monumental study was first published in 1901 and went through at least ten editions up to 1922. Anyone more seriously interested in alleged private revelations must study this great work, which was written at a time like our own when, in the doldrums of materialism and rationalism, a profound reaction caused a wide but often misguided interest in paranormal phenomena, some religious, some related to the psychic, and some magical. (49)

Groeschel distinguishes powerful religious experiences, which are common, from private revelations. The latter involve a sense of intrusion and seem to be beyond the control of the experiencer. The former can be life-changing without the sense of encountering “another.” As an example of a profound religious experience, Groeschel quotes at length from Protestant theologian Jurgen Moltmann’s account of his experiences in Nazi camps. The quotation concludes with a statement that perhaps captures the essence of religious experience: “I cannot even say I found God there. But I do know in my heart that it is there that he found me, and that I would otherwise have been lost.” (50)

A clinical psychologist, Groeschel’s approach to private revelations is far from the caricature of a starry-eyed cleric hunting for “proof” of the supernatural. He tellingly comments on a quote from Saint Therese of Lisieux:

“To ecstasy, I prefer the monotony of sacrifice.” Notice she does not use the passive verb “accept.” She prefers the plain fulfillment of one’s duties. . . . perhaps many who are clinging to or seeking the reassurances given by extraordinary experience might be much better off if they knew how to grow and be enriched by the ordinary experience of God and the Holy which are available to all. Saint John of the Cross, the mystical Doctor of the Church, who warned people to assume that extraordinary experiences came from the forces of evil unless the opposite could be proved, would enthusiastically agree. (51)

Groeschel deems authentic revelations to be those approved by the Church as divine manifestations. False revelations are ones that are not supernatural, even if believed to be so. Fake revelations are the lies of a charlatan.

The Church’s procedures for assessing purported revelations are more rigorous than many realize. For example, of

twenty-two Marian apparitions [that] were seriously studied between 1931 and 1950, . . . only two were approved. . . . No less than two hundred apparitions were reported in the vicinity of Lourdes after the experience of Bernadette. None of these was ever taken seriously.” (52)

Joan of Arc’s case demonstrates that Church decisions are sometimes reversed (she was burned at the stake and later declared a saint), suggesting that sometimes genuine experiences may be judged as doubtful.

False revelations may result from various forms of mental illness or devotion in highly suggestible persons. And fraudulent revelations may sometimes be outrageous. For example:

The Franciscan nun Magdalena of the Cross was three times abbess of her monastery at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Complete with self-inflicted stigmata and the ability to levitate above the earth, with ecstasies and a gift of prophecy, she even convinced others that she lived without food. She enjoyed a reputation for extraordinary holiness for several decades. Bishops, clergy, great nobles, and even inquisitors flocked to her. She succeeded in deluding a large number of Spanish theologians who prided themselves on not being easily taken in. However, in danger of death, she confessed that the whole thing was a fabrication that in fact she inflicted the stigmata on herself. By her own admission she had sold her soul to Satan in return for all of these deceptive gifts, and she actually had to be subjected to exorcism. The fantastic career of this woman alone ought to be a sufficient warning to the gullible. (53)

Groeschel presents rules for evaluating private revelations.

Rule 1 is “keep all claims of revelations in perspective.” (54) As the lives of great saints who never reported astounding visions demonstrate, the pursuit of holiness is more important than powerful spiritual experiences. Private revelations must always be measured against God’s public revelation.

Do you want to know the certain and direct revelation of God? Pick up a Bible and read it! Do you want to be speedily and mysteriously in the presence of Christ? Reverently and prayerfully visit the Blessed Sacrament! Do you want to see and touch Jesus Christ? Serve the poor! These means are available to all, and they are incontrovertibly true. (55)

Groeschel touches on what might be a point of disagreement with some Protestants and Orthodox:

The end of public revelation does not at all mean that God no longer reveals himself to his children. He continues to do so, but now indirectly or in what we call private revelations, as well as by other means of his Divine Providence. (56)

Rule 2 states: “No private revelation comes directly from God and therefore none can be assumed to be inerrantly true.” (57) Even saints’ revelations that are approved by the Church may have elements of error or distortion. Catholics, therefore, are not obligated to believe apparitions or miracles approved by the Church. Groeschel states:

How can a vision from God be wrong? It cannot. But the recipient of the vision can make mistakes. No divine revelation is immediately received by a visionary. It is filtered through the perceptive faculties of the human being who receives it. . . . the only complete direct revelation of God came through the Divine Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He alone has known the Father as he is. (58)

Rule 3 says:

A private revelation by definition is personal and therefore must be carefully applied by those for whom it was meant and only within the limits of ordinary human prudence and never in an unreasonable way or against the teaching of the Church. It must never be considered an infallible guide in any situation. (59)

Because I am a counseling psychologist who has worked with cult victims, I have talked to many good people who were exploited and abused by arrogant cult leaders who insisted that their personal “revelations” be treated as infallible.

Rule 4 states:

A person who is the recipient of an authentic revelation, even a canonized saint, may indeed make errors in understanding that revelation or in reporting experiences which are not authentic revelations. (60)

Groeschel notes that most revelations are internal, often consisting of words and usually not something that the visionary actually hears. Sometimes inner visions “may appear to be in the external world (Bernadette saw the Lady; the spectators saw nothing), or they are in the imaging faculty of the mind, as Saint Teresa describes her visions.” (61)

Because internal visions lack the anchor points that help us assess the objectivity of auditory or visual perceptions (e.g., take a photo; ask somebody, “Did you see that?”), the visionary’s preconceptions, needs, etc. may distort the message actually received. Moreover, the possibility of errors in reporting can alter the true message. The psychological truism that the message intended is not always the message received applies to reports of visions as well. For various reasons, people do not always say what they mean, e.g., because of deficient verbal fluency, and psychological factors within the recipient of a message can distort what is received.

Sometimes, according to Groeschel, even saints can be led astray, such as Saint Catherine of Siena who

learned from a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary herself that the Immaculate Conception was not true. Actually at this time the Dominicans and Franciscans were locked in theological controversy over this question. It seemed to the saint that Our Lady took the side of the Dominicans. (62)

In this case a revered saint interpreted her vision in a way that was contrary to what would become official Catholic dogma. If it were a true supernatural vision, a Catholic should conclude that the recipient twisted the intended divine message. Groeschel gives other examples of saintly errors, as well as non-Christian private revelations, such as those undergirding A Course in Miracles. (When he was a student at Columbia, he studied under psychologist Helen Schucman, whose private revelations gave rise to the Course in Miracles.)

After learning about these saintly “blunders,” a skeptic might smile (or snicker) and conclude that all religious visions must be psychologically generated bunk. Skeptics have offered natural explanations for many visions and apparitions, including those approved by the Catholic Church, e.g., Fatima. (63) Father Groeschel would only partially disagree. Like Saint John of the Cross, he would dismiss the majority of supposed visions. But he also believes that we sometimes receive communications from a supernatural realm, although recipients of the vision are likely to distort the communication to some degree.

Conclusions

The negative association of religious visions with hallucinations results, in large part, from the high percentage of religious hallucinations in psychotic and psychedelic-drug-user populations. Those adhering to a materialist philosophy frequently provide alternative explanations of visions and speculate that all religious experience may be biologically based. That hallucinations are much more common among normal populations than was once believed strengthens the skeptics’ argument because they do not have to demonstrate psychopathology in those reporting religious visions. But the prevalence of religious hallucinations among normal populations also strengthens the believers’ argument that psychologically healthy people may receive, albeit dimly and unreliably, communications from a transcendent realm. The empirical data, then, does not resolve the disagreement. Those who have faith in “atoms and the void” can find reasons to dismiss religious claims. Those who have faith in a transcendent reality can find reasons to support that faith.

Religious faith, ironically, does not need the dramatic visions that bring so much attention to certain religious claims. Whether Buddhist, Christian, or some other faith, religious experience and commitment entails much more than one, or even a handful, of powerful sensory experiences. Groeschel probably speaks for many when he says:

The best lesson one may learn from these authenticated and canonized visionaries is to do what you are supposed to do and leave the rest to God. The fulfillment of duty is the guiding principle of any decent moral life, in any religion of the world, because it expresses the natural law and is completely consistent with the revealed law of God. The fulfillment of duty placed before us by the providential circumstances of life, as we are guided by the commandments and the teaching of the gospel, is the straight road to God. Along that road any valid religious experience which occurs may be useful. (64)

Hallucinations, delusions, and religious visions are interesting phenomena. But to one who has faith in a transcendent reality, they are ultimately unimportant.

Endnotes

1 Catholic Encyclopedia, “Visions and Apparitions” - https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15477a.htm

2 The Cleveland Clinic says that hallucinations may be auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. They may also involve a sense of “presence” or movement of one’s body. “Hypnopompoc” hallucinations may occur when waking up, and “hypnogogic” hallucinations may occur when falling asleep. In addition to mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia, major depression), hallucinations may result from fever, drugs, dehydration, sleep deprivation, migraine, trauma, severe pain, grieving, infections, recovering from anesthesia, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy Body dementia (“buildup of clumps of proteins — called Lewy bodies — in your brain’s nerve cells”), epilepsy, narcolepsy, Charles Bonnet Syndrome (a certain kind of eye deterioration), liver failure, kidney failure, stage 3 HIV/AIDS, brain cancer, and medications. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23350-hallucinations

3 Cook, C. H. (2015). Religious psychopathology: The prevalence of religious content of delusions and hallucinations in mental disorder. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 61(4), 401-425. doi: 10.1177/0020764015573089. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4440877/

4 Sidgewick, H. A. (1894). Report of the census on hallucinations. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 26, 259-394.

5 Bentall, R. (2000). Hallucinatory experiences. In E. Cardena, S. J. Lynn, & S. Krippner (Eds.), Varieties of anomalous experience: Examining the scientific evidence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, p. 94.

6 West, D. J. (1948). A mass observation questionnaire on hallucinations. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 34, 187-196.

7 McKellar, P. (1968). Experience and behaviour. London: Penguin.

8 Bentall, p. 94.

9 Tien, A. Y. (1991) Distribution of hallucinations in the population. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 26, 287-292.

10 Bentall, p. 94.

11 Ocklenburg, S. (2022, Dec. 31). Hallucinations are far more common than most people think. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-asymmetric-brain/202212/new-research-shows-how-common-hallucinations-really-are

12 Aynsworth, C. Rolinson, J., Pervez, M., Collerton, D., & Dudley, R. (2022, 11 December). What is the frequency and nature of visual hallucinations in non-clinical participants? Psychology and Psychotherapy, 96(2), 281-295. https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12440. https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/papt.12440?campaign=wolearlyview

13 Ocklenburg. Section: “What Did Scientists Find Out?”

14 Linzen, M. M. J., de Boer, J. N., Schutte, M. J. L., Begemann, M. J. H., de Vries, J., Koops, S., Blom, R. E., Heringa, S. M. Blom, J. D., & Sommer, I. E. C. (2022, April 22). Occurrence and phenomenology of hallucinations in the general population: A large online survey. Schizophrenia, 8(41). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41537-022-00229-9. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41537-022-00229-9#:~:text=presence%20of%20hallucinations.-,Occurrence%20of%20hallucinations,modalities%20(gray;%20a)

15 Linszen et al., Discussion Section.

16 Linszen et al., Results section, Occurrence of Hallucinations subsection.

17 Dominguez M-D-G, Garralda ME. (2016). Assessing and managing hallucinations in children and adolescents. BJPsych Advances; 22(6):380-390. doi:10.1192/apt.bp.115.014738. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/article/assessing-and-managing-hallucinations-in-children-and-adolescents/9DFC17F7B788E4DA68455B51B4B7FF88 (Quotation is from the abstract.)

18 Moreno-Küstner B, Martín C, Pastor L. (2018 Apr 12). Prevalence of psychotic disorders and its association with methodological issues. A systematic review and meta-analyses. PLoS One,13(4):e0195687. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195687. PMID: 29649252; PMCID: PMC5896987. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29649252/

19 Luhrmann TM, Weisman K, Aulino F, Brahinsky JD, Dulin JC, Dzokoto VA, Legare CH, Lifshitz M, Ng E, Ross-Zehnder N, Smith RE. (2021, Feb. 2). Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.,118(5):e2016649118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2016649118. PMID: 33495328; PMCID: PMC7865123. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7865123/

20 Lurhmann et al. Introduction section.

21 Lurhmann et al. Introduction section.

22 West, L. J. (1975). A clinical and theoretical overview of hallucinatory phenomena. In Siegel, R. K., & West, L. J. (Eds.), Hallucinations: Behavior, experience, and theory. New York: Wiley, p. 288.

23 West, p. 301.

24 Moro, L., & Norieka, V. (2011). Sacramental and spiritual use of hallucinogenic drugs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(6), 319-320. doi:10.1017/S0140525X11000768 https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/162281/M%C3%B3r%C3%B3%20&%20Noreika%20(2011)%20Sacramental%20and%20spiritual%20use%20of%20hallucinogenic%20drugs%20@%20BBS.pdf?sequence=1

25 Huxley, A. (1954). The doors of perception. Heaven and Hell. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 16-17.

26 Huxley, pp. 34-35.

27 Smith, H. (1964). Do drugs have religious import? The Journal of Philosophy, 61(18). End of section 1. https://www.erowid.org/entheogens/journals/entheogens_journal2.shtml

28 Kapleau, Philip. Zen practice and attainment. A manuscript in process of publication. [Kapleau has published a number of books, but none with this precise title, which Smith cited. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kapleau]

29 Smith, Section 4.

30 James, W. (1961; 1902). The varieties of religious experience. New York: MacMillan, p. 30.

31 Brown, W. S. (2017, Jan. 6). Neuroscience and religious faith. International Society for Science & Religion. https://www.issr.org.uk/issr-statements/neuroscience-religious-faith/

32 Persinger, M. A. (1983). Religious and mystical experiences as artifacts of temporal lobe function: A general hypothesis. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 57(3). https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1983.57.3f.1255

33 God Helmet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet

34 Granqvist, P; Fredrikson, M; Unge, P; Hagenfeldt, A; Valind, S; Larhammar, D; Larsson, M (2005). Sensed presence and mystical experiences are predicted by suggestibility, not by the application of transcranial weak complex magnetic fields. Neuroscience Letters 379 (1): 1–6. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C10&q=+Granqvist%2C+P%3B+Fredrikson%2C+M%3B+Unge%2C+P%3B+Hagenfeldt%2C+A%3B+Valind%2C+S%3B+Larhammar%2C+D%3B+Larsson%2C+M+%282005%29.+Sensed+presence+and+mystical+experiences+are+predicted+by+suggestibility%2C+not+by+the+application+of+transcranial+weak+complex+magnetic+fields.+Neuroscience+Letters+379&btnG=

35 Beauregard, Mario (25 September 2006). Neural correlates of a mystical experience in Carmelite nuns. Neuroscience Letters. 405 (3): 186–190. doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2006.06.060. PMID 16872743. S2CID 13563460. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304394006006392?via%3Dihub

36 Newberg Andrew B, D’Aquili Eugene G, Rause Vince. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. Vol. 90. New York: Ballantine Books; 2002. [Google Scholar]. Cited in Shukla, S., Acharya, S., & Rajput, D. (2013). Neurotheology - Matters of the Mind or Matters that Mind? J Clin Diagn Res. 7(7), 1486–1490. doi: 10.7860/JCDR/2013/5409.3181.

37 Brown, Section: Theological and Philosophical Perspectives on the Neuroscience of Religion. https://www.issr.org.uk/issr-statements/neuroscience-religious-faith/

38 Bouma, J. (2016, October 25). How do Catholics and Protestants disagree over Scripture & tradition? Zondervan Academic. https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/how-do-catholics-and-protestants-disagree-over-scripture-tradition

39 Bouma.

40 Bouma.

41 Catechism of the Catholic Church. (1994). St. Paul, MN: The Wanderer Press, p. 24 (section 73).

42 Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 23 (sections 66 and 67).

43 Protestantism. Wikipedia. Section: Pentecostalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism

44 Protestantism. Wikipedia. Section: Neo-charismatics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism

45 Lurhmann et al. Introduction section

46 List of private revelations approved by the Catholic Church. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_revelations_approved_by_the_Catholic_Church

47 Groeschel, B. (1993). A still, small voice: A practical guide on reported revelations. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

48 Poulain, A. (1950). The graces of interior prayer. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

49 Groeschel, pp. 12-13.

50 Groeschel, p. 136. Quoted from: Moltmann, J. (1980). Experience of God. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 7-9.

51 Groeschel, pp. 14-15.

52 Groeschel, pp. 40-41.

53 Groeschel, pp. 45-46.

54 Groeschel, p. 24.

55 Groeschel, pp. 24-25.

56 Groeschel, p. 25.

57 Groeschel, p. 27.

58 Groeschel, p. 29.

59 Groeschel, p. 35.

60 Groeschel, p. 49.

61 Groeschel, p. 51.

62 Groeschel, pp. 59-60.

63 See Wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_F%C3%A1tima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

64 Groeschel, p. 138.