"An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions." - Robert A. Humphrey

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From LDPVTP (on the earlier Hildegard post):


I quoth to thee in its entirety Chapter 20: 'The Visions of Hildegard', from Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and Other Clinical Tales. But it has nothing to do with sex. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist.

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The religious literature of all ages is replete with descriptions of 'visions', in which sublime and ineffable feelings have been accompanied by the experience of radiant luminosity (William James speaks of 'photism' in this context). It is impossible to ascertain, in the vast majority of cases, whether the experience represents a hysterical or psychotic ecstasy, the effects of intoxication, or an epileptic or migrainous manifestation. A unique exception is provided in the case of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1180), a nun and mystic of exceptional intellectual and literary powers, who experienced countless 'visions' from earliest childhood to the close of her life, and has left exquisite accounts and figures of these in the two manuscript codices which have come down to us - Scivias, and Liber divinorum operum ('Book of divine works').

A careful consideration of these accounts and figures leaves no room for doubt concerning their nature: they were indisputably migrainous, and they illustrate, indeed, many of the varieties of visual aura earlier discussed. Singer (1958), in the course of an extensive essay on Hildegard's visions, selects the following phenomena as most characteristic of them:

"In all a prominent feature is a point or a group of points of light, which shimmer and move, usually in a wave-like manner, and are most often interpreted as stars or flaming eyes [Fig. B]. In quite a number of cases one light, larger than the rest, exhibits a series of concentric circular figures of wavering form [Fig. A]; and often definite fortification-figures are described, radiating in some cases from a coloured area [Figs. C, D]. Often the lights gave that impression of working, boiling or fermenting, described by so many visionaries....."

Hildegard writes:

"The visions which I saw I beheld neither in sleep, nor in dreams, nor in madness, nor with my carnal eyes, nor with the ears of the flesh, nor in hidden places; but wakeful, alert, and with the eyes of the spirit and the inward ears, I perceive them in open view and according to the will of God."

One such vision, illustrated by a figure of stars falling and being quenched in the ocean [Fig. B], signifies for her 'The Fall of the Angels':

"I saw a great star most splendid and beautiful, and with it an exceeding multitude of falling stars which with the star followed southwards... And suddenly they were all annihilated, being turned into black coals... and cast into the abyss so that I could see them no more."

Such is Hildegard's allegorical interpretation. Our literal interpretation would be that she experienced a shower of phosphenes in transit across the visual field, their passage being succeeded by a negative scotoma. Visions with fortification-figures are represented in her Zelus Dei [Fig. C] and Sedens Lucidus [Fig. D], the fortifications radiating from a brilliantly luminous and (in the original) shimmering and coloured point. These two visions are combined in a composite vision (first picture), and in this she interprets the fortifications as the aedificium of the city of God.

Great rapturous intensity invests the experience of these auras, especially on the rare occasions when a second scotoma follows in the wake of the original scintillation:

"The light which I see is not located, but yet is more brilliant than the sun, nor can I examine its height, length or breadth, and I name it 'the cloud of the living light'. And as sun, moon, and stars are reflected in water, so the writings, sayings, virtues and works of men shine in it before me...

Sometimes I behold within this light another light which I name 'the Living Light itself'... And when I look upon it every sadness and pain vanishes from my memory, so that I am again as a simple maid and not as an old woman."

Invested with this sense of ecstasy, burning with profound theophorous and philosophical significance, Hildegard's visions were instrumental in directing her towards a life of holiness and mysticism. They provide a unique example of the manner in which a physiological event, banal, hateful or meaningless to the vast majority of people, can become, in a privileged consciousness, the substrate of a supreme ecstatic inspiration. One must go to Dostoeyevsky, who experienced on occasion ecstatic epileptic auras to which he attached momentous significance, to find an adequate historical parallel.

"There are moments, and it is only a matter of five or six seconds, when you feel the presence of the eternal harmony... a terrible thing is the frightful clearness with which it manifests itself and the rapture with which it fills you. If this state were to last more than five seconds, the soul could not endure it and would have to disappear. During these five seconds I live a whole human existence, and for that I would give my whole life and not think I was paying too dearly..."