Case XCVI

The visions of Jean Engelbrecht bear a close resemblance to those of Swedenborg. After passing many years in a frightful state of suffering and melancholy, which had frequently tempted him to suicide, this doctor at length appeared to die, and then returned to life. During the short space of his apparent death, he imagined that he had visited both heaven and hell. From this time, his melancholy left him, and was succeeded by a religious exaltation. We subjoin the succinct description, which he gives of his experience during this singular state: -

"On Thursday morning I felt that my death was near, and that it commenced in the inferior, and passed towards the superior extremities. My body became stiff; I lost all sensibility in my feet, hands, and other parts. I could neither see nor speak; my mouth was paralyzed; my eyes no longer perceived light. I heard the attendants say: 'Feel his limbs; how cold and stiff they are! he will soon be dead.' I did not feel their touch, and hearing itself soon departed. I was then carried into space with the swiftness of an arrow from a bow. During this voyage, I reached the gate of hell. A fearful darkness and thick clouds struck my sight; my olfactories were painfully affected by a smoke, a vapor, an emanation of horrible effluvia. I heard howlings, and dreadful lamentations.

"Thence I was transported, by the Holy Spirit, in a golden chariot, to the midst of the splendors of heaven, where I saw a choir of holy angels, prophets, and apostles, singing and playing around the throne of the Most High. The angels resembled flames of fire, and the redeemed souls appeared as bright sparks. The throne of God was dazzling. I then received a message from God, transmitted by an angel."

The joy which Engelbrecht felt in this communication and spectacle was so great, that from that moment he was an enthusiast, who could hardly find words to express what was passing in his heart.

"On returning to myself," he continues, "I felt my body reanimated from the head downwards, and I began to hear the prayers that were being offered in my room. Sight succeeded hearing. By degrees my strength returned. I arose, and felt more vigorous than I had ever felt before. Celestial joy had so strengthened me, that the people were extremely surprised to see me recover in so short a time."

From that period, during several years, Jean had visions and revelations during the day, whilst his eyes were open, and without any symptoms of the malady that had preceded the first vision. He passed sometimes eight, ten, thirteen days, and even three weeks, without either eating or drinking. Once, he remained for nine months without closing his eyes. On another occasion, he heard, during a period of forty-one nights, angels sing and play celestial music; and could not help joining with them. The persons with him were so transported with joy, that they sang with him during a whole night.*

The state of ecstasy being a phenomenon of extreme nervous excitability, it is clear that it must be manifested at all periods when the mind has been agitated by fanaticism, and by a belief which brings in its train either ardent hopes or strong fears. Hence it is evident that it has been more prevalent in times of ignorance, than at those periods in which a more advanced civilization has enabled reason to triumph over imagination. This remark is undeniably true; and a very little erudition is required to acknowledge the existence of ecstasy in the pythonesses of antiquity, in those initiated into different mysteries, the famous sects of the Middle Ages, the possessed, the convulsed, Shakers, Illuminati, et cetera.

But if the psychological history of man proves that, whenever he is exposed to a permanent moral excitation, his organization becomes susceptible of experiencing the phenomenon of ecstasy, it is essential to establish a distinction of the highest importance between the ecstasy that I shall call physiological and a morbid ecstasy. In other words, we believe that ecstasy may have no influence on the reason, and is but a very exalted state of enthusiasm, whilst it may also occasion reprehensible and unreasonable actions. It is often very difficult to distinguish the shades of difference between them, and which, nevertheless, prove the infinite number of modifications of our being. There will always be an insurmountable difficulty, when we attempt to separate the farthest limits of reason from the first approaches of insanity. M. Lelut, in his Analogies de la liaison et de la Folie, and M. Moreau, in his Chapitre oublie de la Pathologie mentale, have made some attempts to clear up the question; but to those who have studied the subject, it is scarcely more than glanced at.

* Arnold, op. cit.t p. 219. See the singular work of S. Alph. Cahagnet, Arcanes de la vie futur devoiles, 2 vols., Paris, 1849. The statement published by M. le Docteur Carriere, in the Annates Medico-Psychologiques du Sancluaire du Spiritualism, by the same author, is calculated to excite the curiosity and arrest the attention of the readers of the works of M. Cahagnet, which appear to us to have more than one point of resemblance to the works of Swedenborg.

This division ranks in one class prophets, saints, philosophers, and many illustrious persons, who have fallen into a state of ecstasy from profound meditation, a sudden illumination of their thoughts, or a supernatural intuition, and places in another class, beside the individuals already pointed out, the nuns of Loudon, the Shakers of Cevennes, the convulsed of Saint Me-dard, and the sick who submitted to the exorcisms of Gassner, etc. This second category comprehends likewise the Illuminati, the Martinists, the Begards, the Troglodytes,* the quietists of Mount Athos, many of whom boasted of having seen God face to face. It will be remembered that Madame Guyon, whose opinions have excited so much attention, said that, on reaching the highest degree of her condition, she saw God and his angels.

It would seem as though ecstasy should be only induced in individuals in whom imagination has had time for development; but experience shows that this phenomenon exists even in a number of very young children. In the Theatre Sacre des Cevennes (p. 20), we read that children of eight and six years, and even younger still, fell into ecstasies, and preached and prophesied with others, †

In 1566, a number of children, brought up in the hospital of the city of Amsterdam, girls as well as boys, to the number of sixty or seventy, were attacked with an extraordinary disease; they climbed like cats on the walls and roofs. Their aspect was alarming; they spoke foreign languages; said wonderful things, and even gave an account of all that was then passing in the municipal council. It happened that one of these children revealed to Catharine Gesardi, one of the nurses of the hospital, that her son, Jean Nicolai, was preparing his departure for La

* The Troglodytes were pure Arians. † Encyclopedic Catholique, p. 430.

Haye, and that his errand was for evil. This woman went immediately to the Basilica, which she reached just as the Council was about to rise. She found her son there, who was himself a member of the council, and asked him, if it was true that he was going to La Haye. Much confused, he confessed that he was; and, on hearing that the child had revealed it, he returned and informed the council, who, finding their project was discovered, abandoned it.

These children ran in groups, of ten or twelve, through the public squares. They went to the rector, and reproached him with his most secret actions. It is also asserted that they discovered several plots against the Protestants.*

The faculty of prophesying, foretelling the future, and speaking foreign languages, which appeared really to exist in this epidemic, and in that of the Gevennes, was probably due to an exalted state of the mind, favored by persecution, and the spirit of imitation. This state does not argue any other development of mind than that observable in the preaching disease of Sweden, of which we shall shortly speak; and in carefully examining the individuals so attacked, we shall probably find that they were only verifying reminiscences of things, seen or heard, wrought out by cerebral excitation.

Ecstasy may be seen under several aspects, with which it is necessary to be acquainted. One of the most remarkable of these forms is catalepsy, which gave rise to an opinion amongst those who had not carefully studied this nervous affection, that visions are not uncommonly produced in this state.

The greater number of persons who have experienced cataleptic ecstasies, have, when the fit is over, described the ineffable joy they felt, the dreadful phantoms they saw, the divine visions and the angelic assemblages which they witnessed. Many undertake to predict the future, and to imitate soothsayers. Many remarkable cases of this kind may be met with in the writings of the doctors.†

* Van Dale, De l'Idolatriae, Praef. pp. 18 and 10.

† Conf. Paulinus, cent. iv. obs. 38; Marcellus Donatus, cap. i. p. 91, seqq.; Augu8tinus, de Civitate Dei, lib. xiv. cap. xxiii.; Act. Medic. Berol Dec. I. vol. ii. p. 62; A. N. G. Dec. III. anno 3, obs. 61, and vol. i. obs. 250, p. 563.