date

27 Jan y 1816 Not Paul 1 o
27 Jan y 1816

Not Paul

1 o

Ch Paul

3

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?
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  • Title: [1817 Sept. 18 Not Paul Ch.]
    Description: 1817 Sept. 18

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    Ch. Paul’s Vision

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    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.
  • Title: [1817 Oct. 23 Not Paul 13]
    Description: 1817 Oct. 23

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    Ch. Miracle Quasi, Visions

    1

    §. 3 Trances

    Trances

    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

    Not Paul

    1 o

    Paul’s Vision

    Ch

    4

    But though at no time a story of a vision i.e. a story in which an individual without any corresponding proof asserts himself to have seen a vision can present any rational / reasonable / title to credence, yet that at such a time as that in question stories to this effect should be brought forward and not only be brought forward but obtain extensive credence―in this there is nothing wonderful: in this there is nothing but what is perfectly in unison with / conformable to / the known state of things―in a word the known state of minds―even of the most cultivated minds at that time: and not much, at that time, but at times in a considerable degree posterior to, and therefore more [experienced] MS ‘experience’. / fuller of experience / and mature than the particular time in question.

    For proof of this three / four / anecdotes will be abundantly sufficient: viz one related by Josephus the historian Flavius Josephus (37- c.98). himself as he says being an eye witness of what he relates: the two / three / others related by Tacitus the historian of Vespasian the Emperor. See, for example, Tacitus, Historiae, IV. lxxxiii for an account of a vision seen by Vespasian.

     Go on with these stories from Jug. True.