The great and the good from Jesus in Gethsemane to William Blake in Clerkenwell, London to Joan of Arc in France amongst countless others have been touched by visions.
Religious works are full of visions. The Book of Isiah opens with the vision.
Also the poor and the insignificant have been 'channels' for visions. As in 1864 when a young, very asthmatic 14 year old peasant girl (later known as 'St Bernadette' saw a vision of the Virgin Mary alighting on a bush, in remotest, rural France. This vision or' miracle' was later to become the faith phenomenon called Lourdes.
In the over 50 years since that vision as many as 40 million people have made pilgrimages to Lourdes and many have come away claiming miracle cures.
We have also nigh on a century of visions of UFOs. These apparitions in the sky come in all shapes and sizes fleshy,metallic, greys, the occupants - for those lucky enough to have seen them in person 'they' can have ghost like appearances, not unlike David Bowie, and some of these other worldly bastards have absconded with out daughters, wouldn't you know.
Then we have the crop circles, cattle mutilations in Mexico, then there is poltergeists and channelled spirits and celestial time distortions (what the hell is that?) and so on, till the paranormal becomes the norm.
So where does all this nonsense come from?
The origins lies in angels, elves, dragons, demons, trolls and succubi sitting on your shoulder eating your very 'soul' enough to scare the bejaysus our of anyone as would that tosh Harry Potter. And Witches hundred of thousands of women killed in medieval Europe for being 'Witches'. And of course talking trees, visions are manifold in forests. The myth of the alien, the 'other' is as old as humanity itself.
Essentially they are all nonsense, but perhaps there is a human need to see them as harbingers; of things to come; of warnings about the future we can never know.
Religious works are full of visions. The Book of Isiah opens with the vision.
Also the poor and the insignificant have been 'channels' for visions. As in 1864 when a young, very asthmatic 14 year old peasant girl (later known as 'St Bernadette' saw a vision of the Virgin Mary alighting on a bush, in remotest, rural France. This vision or' miracle' was later to become the faith phenomenon called Lourdes.
In the over 50 years since that vision as many as 40 million people have made pilgrimages to Lourdes and many have come away claiming miracle cures.
We have also nigh on a century of visions of UFOs. These apparitions in the sky come in all shapes and sizes fleshy,metallic, greys, the occupants - for those lucky enough to have seen them in person 'they' can have ghost like appearances, not unlike David Bowie, and some of these other worldly bastards have absconded with out daughters, wouldn't you know.
Then we have the crop circles, cattle mutilations in Mexico, then there is poltergeists and channelled spirits and celestial time distortions (what the hell is that?) and so on, till the paranormal becomes the norm.
So where does all this nonsense come from?
The origins lies in angels, elves, dragons, demons, trolls and succubi sitting on your shoulder eating your very 'soul' enough to scare the bejaysus our of anyone as would that tosh Harry Potter. And Witches hundred of thousands of women killed in medieval Europe for being 'Witches'. And of course talking trees, visions are manifold in forests. The myth of the alien, the 'other' is as old as humanity itself.
Essentially they are all nonsense, but perhaps there is a human need to see them as harbingers; of things to come; of warnings about the future we can never know.
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