date

1817 Sept. 18 Not Paul Ch.
1817 Sept. 18

Not Paul

Ch. Paul’s Vision

Visions explained

Trances

Meantime in speaking / what has been said / of a vision the word trance

JB marginal note: ‘Græcé εκστασις’.

will sometimes have / has here and there / occurred: the sort of relation which seems in idea at least to have had place between a vision

JB marginal note: ‘Græcé οραμα’.

and a trance, seems therefore to present a demand / some call for a few words of / explanation.

To judge from the account / reports / a trance is a mode of being a state of mind, in which a vision may be seen: between the one and the other between neither however and the other does the connection seem a necessary one: a vision may have place without a trance: a trance may also have place without a vision: although if it have not a vision in it / without a vision in it /, it seems not easy to say to what purpose it can have been got up, nor what can have been the use of it.

If at the time when it is requisite or proper to have a vision, you have / happen to be / the convenience of being alone―free from the intrusion of prying eyes, there is no harm indeed in being in a trance, but neither does there seem to be any very particular use from it.

But / On the other hand / if in / at / the time in question / required / you can not avoid being in company, the trance if not matter of necessity is at any rate matter of no small convenience. While Standing, sitting / standing / or walking, and speaking or not speaking, you continue visible to the company―to the whole of the company or so much as to any one member of it, whatever visions it may happen to you to be favoured with, it may not be altogether easy to get credit / obtain credence / for them. In that case, the best way at least, if not the only way, is to fall down flat upon your face, you are then in a trance: you are then in a trance: and so long as it is convenient and agreable to you to continue in it / that state / you may whatsoever visions you stand in need of / have a demand for /, and you have so much time for considering what they shall be.
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  • Title: [1817 Oct. 23 Not Paul 14]
    Description: 1817 Oct. 23

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    §. 3 Vision Trance

    If then the time and place is such that without the benefit of a trance he can not conveniently have seen a vision, then and there is the time and place for him to have the preparatory trance.

    The most apt / fittest / if not the only apt place for a man to have a trance in is a place of public worship for example at Jerusalem the Holy Temple. In a place of that sort the day time is the only time for more generally speaking to visit it: on that occasion as among other nations so among the Jews prostration even in the presence of others in any number prostration, face upwards or downwards was a customary attitude: by that attitude proof of piety was exhibited by it downwards the most convenient, because in that posture, concealment would let in / afford room / the supposition that whatsoever extraordinary colours and forms were the consequences of such a state of mind had actually had place.

    Stationed in this holy place, placed / displayed / in that pious posture, it would depend upon a man to have had whatsoever vision at the conjunction[?] in question it was proper for him to have had: and so long as it was convenient to him to lie / continue / in that posture he would have the convenience of settling with himself what the vision should be.
  • Title: [1817 Oct. 23 Not Paul 13]
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    §. 3 Trances

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    In the / one / English translation of the Acts By the word trance will be found designated a state of mind, of which no other account can be given than that it was / is / one in which a man was supposed / regarded / to be prepared to see a vision: it may be defined a state of preparation for a vision: for if no vision is seen, a man may as well not have been in a trance as in one / the trance has no use or purpose /. No use for any such thing as a trance: nor therefore any occasion for speaking of it.

    In more ordinary language the word trance might be rendered a fit: were it not that with the word fit is connected the idea of disease: whereas a man may be in ever so good a state of health without being the less fit for being in the first place in a trance, and in the next place being gratified with a vision in consequence.

    But when a man is destined to have a vision why it may be asked not give him a vision at once, and without the ceremony of his being first put in a trance? The answer is: that there are situations in which without this / being first placed in this / introductory state a man can not so well have had a vision. There is a time for all things. For the seeing a vision the time and the only proper time is one in which he is not / it happens to him not to / visible to any one else: whether it be that he is alone, or that it is night time, and the night so dark, that where it happens to him to be whether in bed or out of bed it may happen to him not to be seen by any body else.
  • Title: [27 Jan y 1816 Not Paul 1 o]
    Description: 27 Jan y 1816

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    2. General credulity of the times

    One word / A word or two / as to these visions, and these trances. Though on one occasion vision alone is the word― vision without trance, and on another occasion trance, trance alone without vision, the state of things which they are employed to designate seems to be much the same. A trance is the state of body and mind which the man was supposed to have been in, at the time when he is supposed to have been seeing a vision.

    One observation here presents itself, and after it / upon the back of it / two questions.

    The observation is that the story of a vision is precisely that sort of story of the falsity of which, supposing it false, no proof can by the nature of the case ever be afforded.

    As to the questions they are these:

    1. Suppose to the effect in question or any other effect, suppose at this time a day a story of a vision, seen by a man in a trance or not in a trance brought forward is there / would so much as / a single man endowed with any tolerable education or reading or experienced knowledge of the world be found to credit it to give credence to it?

    2. To a story of this kind suppose any such notion to have place as that in any case it could present a title to credence, where is the imposture or the impostor that might not make out a title to credence, and upon the strength of it set up and establish a false religion―any false religion that happened to suit his views?