Appendix E: Visions and Dreams 870
Appendix E Visions and Dreams V isions and dreams do not strictly count as miracles1 and therefore do not belong to the primary subject of this book. Nevertheless, I will cover them briefly here to illustrate further how many cultures, including elements within Western culture, demur from the dominant Western academic skepticism about suprahuman, extranormal phenomena. (One could have also addressed claims regarding glossolalia, but I have reserved that treatment exclusively, and a discussion of prophecy almost exclusively, for relevant points in my commentary on Acts.)
Although few critics deny that people experience visions and no one denies that people have dreams, Western academics usually treat them as subjective experiences not to be taken seriously.2 A majority of people in the United States do, however, believe that dreams can sometimes foretell the future, and well over one hundred million of them claim to have had a dream that accurately predicted the future.3
(I use these figures as statements of belief, not evidence of paranormal activity; it would be quite surprising if, out of the thousands of dreams the average person has, some of them did not somehow "come true."4) Here I primarily want to reinforce
1. Though most who prayed for the sick surveyed in Tilley, "Phenomenology," 555, had "visions" or "images" relevant to the healings.
2. See Young and Goulet, "Introduction," 9, arguing that this approach reflects anthropology's earlier complicity with Western imperialism. Increasingly a number of anthropologists are taking them more seriously (Young, "Visitors," 168–69, noting also Jung's insights on 169–70; in psychology, see, e.g.,
Blessing, "Psychology," 97–98); although they appear among all cultures, they tend to be dismissed in Western academia by classifying them with hallucinations (Young, "Visitors," 190).
3. Alexander, Signs, 117 (citing Baylor Institute, Piety, 45–46).
4. Indeed, that a higher proportion did not claim at least accidental correspondences suggests that many respondents must have ruled out cases they deemed coincidence, or that they do not remember their dreams. "Paranormal" dreams tend to involve the future, in contrast to paranormal knowledge while awake
(McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 49, 54, and sources cited there). Some claims, however, appear
Visions and Dreams
the point that claims in ancient historical sources should not be dismissed simply because they are foreign to Enlightenment expectations.
Cross-cultural studies show that altered states of consciousness are a frequent phenomenon; indeed, brain research suggests that the human brain is open to such experiences.5 In fact, from dreams during REM sleep, to sleepwalking, to occurrences of psychomotor epilepsy, and to possession trance, a continuum of altered states of consciousness overlaps at some points with "normal" life.6 While such phenomena do not all involve identical external causes, they do suggest that the common wiring of human nervous systems allows for similar symptoms due to a variety of causes, often experienced by the nervous system as something analogous to emotional stresses.7 In religious contexts, various cultures often construe such altered states positively.8 Heavenly visions in ancient Jewish apocalyptic and mystic sources show some parallels with shamanic sky journeys in various cultures.9 Clinitoo precise to be explained as coincidence (e.g., Tari, Wind, 146–47). Shorter, Witch Doctor, 152–53, notes that some have argued for genuine precognition in some dreams (citing Dunne, Experiment, 37ff., 50, 59; and esp. Rycroft, Innocence, 36); see also Targ, Schlitz, and Irwin, "Experiences," 219–20 (a Latina's dream correctly predicted a husband's death by being hit by a bus two weeks before it happened, though [220] the psychiatric resident attributed this connection to coincidence); McClenon, Events, 45–47, 113–14; idem, Healing, 121–22; discussion of dreams involving accurate but previously unknown information allegedly from the deceased in Greeley, Sociology, 34–35.
5. So Pilch, Visions, passim, esp. 158–59; idem, "Trance Experience"; Malina and Pilch, Acts, 185–87; idem, Letters, 331–33. Wulff, "Experience," 410–14, notes that mysticism is not in itself psychopathological and surveys some neuropsychological models for it (416–18), as well as other approaches (418–27).
Although alternative explanations merit more consideration, Beauregard and O'Leary, Brain, argue that such mystic experiences reflect genuine connections with the primordial ground of being (e.g., 293–94).
Such hypotheses aside, the brain is susceptible to such experiences; McClenon, Healing, 90–91, notes that such experiences can be stimulated artificially. McClenon and Nooney, "Experiences," 48, cite Persinger and Makarec, "Signs"; Persinger and Valliant, "Signs"; Ramachandran and Blakeslee, Phantoms; Newberg, d'Aquili, and Rause, Brain Science. Strelan, Strange Acts, 131, suggests that ancients were less concerned than moderns to distinguish visual from visionary sight; while that was probably true in some cases, many ancient writers would have recognized the distinction.
6. Bourguignon, "Introduction," 14; for psychomotor epilepsy, Prince, "EEG," 122–24; for sleepwalking, 124–25; for hysterical fugue states, 125–27. Lucid dreaming appears especially during REM sleep
(LaBerge and Gackenbach, "Dreaming," 158–60) and bears no connection with psychopathology (167).
7. Whether humans suffering battle fatigue or experimental dogs overwhelmed by stresses, the nervous system may collapse (Prince, "EEG," 129). Cathartic release of emotion, or at a more extreme level, emotional collapse, seems to reset human emotional circuits; whether ecstasies during Wesley's preaching
(June 15, 1739) or brainwashing techniques, emotional collapse yields a suggestible state to which some also compare possession trance (130). Prince himself (132) thinks that ecstasies in Wesley's meetings were caused by suggestion, lacking neurophysiological causes as in some other cases. But other studies have shown that intense religious emotion can produce altered neurophysiological states (see, e.g., Goodman,
Speaking in Tongues; on mystical "call" trances, cf. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, 37–44). Prince, "EEG," 133–34, notes neurophysiological changes due to rhythmic drumming, as in West Africa and Haiti, and in "photic driving," "light flashing at or near the alpha rhythm of the brain."
8. Ludwig, "Altered States," 88. Cf. Goodman, Trance Journeys; idem, Ecstasy.
9. See Pilch, "Sky Journeys," including Paul (104) but especially the author of 1 Enoch (106–10).
Extracorporeal and mystical corporeal translocation experiences are reported in various cultures (see, e.g., Berenbaum, Kerns, and Raghavan, "Experiences," 31). "Hypnotic susceptibility" helps predict these
(Alvarado, "Experiences," 208); while some evidence links these with parapsychological experiences, these
Appendix E
cal studies have shown that anomalous experiences do not by themselves indicate any psychopathology; where experiences formally resemble pathologies, they often involve different causes.10 For theists who recognize God working in nature, neurological approaches need not prove incompatible with belief in revelation. Thus psychological or physiological factors in understanding need not rule out genuine communication from persons distinct from the recipient, divine as well as human.11
Ancient Dream Reports I focus more on dreams here because they appear more frequently in the sources. (They presumably appear more frequently because most people dream far more regularly than they see visions.) Throughout history, many people have believed that dreams provided them with divine direction.12 Whether in Greece and Macedonia,13 Rome,14
Egypt,15 Carthage,16 the East,17 and Palestine;18 among Diaspora Jews19 or later rabbis;20 could occur without actual separation from the body (Alvarado, "Experiences," 209). Despite similarities, magic in some cultures does not employ sky-journeys (Musi, "Shaman," 55).
10. Cardeña, Lynn, and Krippner, "Experiences," 17; Berenbaum, Kerns, and Raghavan, "Experiences,"
32. Noting connections, see Berenbaum, Kerns, and Raghavan, "Experiences," 32–40, but they also note
(32) that "there is not good empirical support" for associating some kinds of anomalous experiences with psychopathology. In cases of hallucinatory audition, "inner speech" is projected externally (Bentall,
"Experiences," 99–100), with activity in parts of the brain associated with speech production (100–101; note also subvocalization, 100).
11. For Martin Buber, signs could come not only from the unconscious mind, but also from God as revelation, while utilizing the same mental forms (Merkur, "Revelation," 294). Neurological features of the experience of communication could be identical whether or not extrahuman persons are involved; for some theists, revelatory inspiration could imply God working in nature, perhaps at a special level of providence.
12. See generally Croy, "Religion, Personal," 927; Theissen, Erleben, 138. On Greek and Roman dreams, see also Miller, Convinced, 23–39 (noting both acceptance and criticism); Bovon, Studies, 145–49; on Jewish dreams, Miller, Convinced, 40–61; Bovon, Studies, 149–52; on post–nt Christian dreams up through Augustine, see Bovon, Studies, 155–61 (e.g., Acts Thom. 154; Acts John 48); in the ancient Near
East, see, e.g., sources noted in Long, "Samuel," 283.
13. Homer Il. 1.63; 5.150; Xenophon Anab. 3.1.11; 4.3.8; 6.1.22; Eq. mag. 9.9; Pausanias 4.19.5–6;
9.26.4; Longus 1.7; 2.23, 26–27; 3.27; 4.35; Appian Hist. rom. 11.9.56; 12.12.83; Quintus Curtius 4.2.17;
Arrian Alex. 2.18.1; Babrius 136.3–4; Achilles Tatius 1.3.2; 4.1.4; 7.12.4; Chariton Chaer. 1.12.5; 2.9.6;
3.7.4; 4.1.2; 5.5.5–7; 6.2.2; 6.8.3; cf. Orph. H. 85–87; Epidauros inscriptions; Hadas, Aristeas, 184–85;
Reinhold, Diaspora, 35; Oberhelman, "Dreams"; Mackay, "Plutarch," 104–6; Hanson, "Dreams and Visions"; Martin, Religions, 48–50; idem, "Artemidorus."
14. Tacitus Ann. 2.14; Marcus Aurelius 1.17.8; van der Horst, "Macrobius," 221–22; cf. Virgil Aen.
4.556–57; 7.415–20; Ovid Metam. 9.685–701; 15.653–54.
15. Ezek. Trag. 68–89; Sib. Or. 3.293; Philo Migr. 190; Deissmann, Light, 154; Lewis, Life, 99; Wright,
Archaeology, 53.
16. Dio Cassius bk. 13, frg. in Zonaras 8.22.
17. Herodotus 1.34, 107, 127; Quintus Curtius 3.3.2–3 (but probably a non-Persian literary invention).
18. Josephus War 1.328; 2.116; Life 208–10.
19. Sib. Or. 3.293.
20. Ab. R. Nat. 40 A; 46, §§128–29 B; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 5:2; b. B.B. 10a; Ber. 55a–58a; Hag. 14b; Gen.
Rab. 17:5; 44:17; 89:5–6, 8; Lev. Rab. 3:5; 34:12; Eccl. Rab. 1:1, §1; 3:2, §2; 5:2, §1; 5:6, §1; Lam. Rab.
1.1.16–18; Zeitlin, "Dreams"; Alexander, "Dreambook."
Visions and Dreams
or in magical papyri,21 people often believed that dreams conveyed divine messages.
So compelling was trust in dreams' warnings that they could be employed to bolster an army's courage;22 a fabricated dream reportedly precipitated an innocent man's execution;23 and some found it important to warn of false dream tellers and interpreters.24
God revealed information to biblical heroes in Jewish tradition,25 and later stories amplified the frequency of such revelations.26 Later rabbis believed that revelatory dreams could be secured through fasting27 or their ill pronouncements revoked through fasting.28 Ancients also emphasized dreams experienced in a sacred place.
The ancient Near Eastern practice of incubation—receiving a dream by sleeping in a temple29—continued in the Mediterranean world of the Hellenistic and Roman periods.30 On occasion visions or dreams were believed confirmed by two persons having the same vision;31 such confirmations are sometimes reported today as well.32
Still, even in antiquity people realized that not all dreams were divine revelations, and those who were more skeptical dismissed most dreams from being revelations.33 Thus, what one had been thinking about during the day could cause
21. PGM 4.2076–80, 2444–45, 2625, 3172; PDM Sup. 117–30.
22. E.g., Quintus Curtius 4.2.17.
23. Dio Cassius 60.14.4–15.1; cf. Appian Hist. rom. 12.2.9.
24. Juvenal Sat. 6.542–47; Lam. Rab. 1:1, §14–15; cf. Virgil Aen. 5.636.
25. E.g., Gen 28:12; 37:5–9; Dan 2:19; cf. Josephus Ant. 2.13–16, 63–73.
26. E.g., 1Qap Genar XIX, 14–23; Jub. 27:1–3; 32:1; 41:24; Ezek. Trag. 68–89; Josephus Ant. 2.216–19;
6.38; 7.147; L.A.B. 9:10; 42:3; 4 Ezra 10:59; T. Ab. 4:8 A; 4:16; 6:1–2 B; L.A.E. 23:2/Apoc. Mos. 2:2;
Endres, Interpretation, 207.
27. P. Ket. 12:3, §7.
28. Pesiq. Rab Kah. 28:2. Fasting for revelations appears in a variety of texts (e.g., Dan 10:3; 2 Bar.
20:5; 43:30; Hermas 1.3.10; 9.2 [Vis. 3.1.2]; 18.6–7 [Vis. 3.10.6–7]; see sources in Lincoln, Paradise,
111; Keener, Acts, at Acts 13:2).
29. Cf. Gen 15:12–13; 1 Sam 3:3–4 (though this was certainly not deliberate); 1 Kgs 3:4–5; Keret in KRT A I (ANET 143); Aqhat in AQHT A I (ANET 150).
30. E.g., Diodorus Siculus 1.25.3–4; 1.53.8; Pausanias 1.34.5; 2.27.2; Herodian 4.8.3; Grant, Religions,
16, 38; Oepke, "Ὀναρ," 223–24; Grant, Gods, 66–67; cf. Rousselle, "Cults"; in Josephus, Gnuse, "Temple
Experience."
31. Plutarch Alex. 24.3; Valerius Maximus 1.7.3; Apuleius Metam. 11.13; Boring et al., Commentary,
319–20, cites Epidauros inscr. 21; Parsons, Acts, 129, cites Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 1.57.4;
Josephus Ant. 11.327; Jos. Asen. 14–15; Hermas Vis. 3.1.2; Apuleius Metam. 11.1–3, 6, 21–22, 26–27;
Heliodorus Aeth. 3.11–12, 18; Chariton Chaer. 1.12; for other examples, see Wikenhauser, "Doppelträume"
(cited in Brawley, Luke-Acts and Jews, 59, noting esp. Livy 8.6.8–16; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 1.55–59); in Scripture, see Exod 4:27–28; Judg 7:9–15; Luke 1:8–38; Acts 9:1–16; 10:3–16. Less dramatically, visions or dreams could also be doubled to individuals; see Gen 37:7, 9; 41:1–7; Polybius
10.4.5; Valerius Maximus 1.7.7; the inscription in Horsley, Documents 1, §6, pp. 29–32.
32. Talbot, "Vision," 275 (Evan Roberts and a friend involved with the Welsh Revival); Yun, Heavenly
Man, 28–30, 123, 263–64; Tari, Breeze, 25 (three people having the same vision simultaneously), 42–43
(the entire group having the same vision simultaneously), 91 (several, but not all, saw Jesus); Koch, Zulus,
221; Fever, "Delegation," 34 (a public vision); cf. Crandall, Raising, 17–18; a parapsychological explanation for one non-Christian example, Emmons, Ghosts, 46.
33. Sir 34[31]:1–8; Let. Aris. 213–16; Josephus Ag. Ap. 1.207–8; Homer Od. 19.559–67; Herodotus
7.12–19; Aristotle De an.; Div. somn.; Artemidorus Onir. 1.1; Herodian 2.9.3; cf. b. Hor. 13b; Cicero Div.
2.58.119–72.150; Diogenes Laertius 6.2.43; probably Polybius 33.21.1–2 (see LCL 6:290–91). See further discussion especially in Miller, Convinced, 29–36.
Appendix E
dreams.34 Orators could invent "dreams" for effect,35 even noting that they could be caused by eating particular kinds of food.36 Some considered dreams less likely to be true during autumn37 but more common in spring and autumn, and especially when lying on one's back.38 Some dreams were even intended or regarded as divine deceptions.39
Biblical dreams typically differed from many of their counterparts in terms of who delivered the message. Pagan40 and Jewish41 dreams often included apparitions of deceased persons; like the biblical tradition, however, the nt writers usually limited apparitions to God and Christ or angels (though cf. Acts 16:9).42 Matthew and Luke (exclusively in Acts) stress revelation through dreams more frequently than other extant first-century Christian writers do (Matt 2:12, 13, 19, 22; 27:19;
Acts 16:9–10; 18:9–10; 23:11; 27:23–24; cf. 2:18).43 Vision and dream reports feature also in subsequent Christian history,44 for example, Augustine's reports of his mother's experiences45 or experiences in early Methodism.46 They occur
34. Artemidorus Onir. 1.1. White, Artemidorus, 67–68n6, provides many parallels to this conception.
Cf. perhaps Eccl 2:23.
35. Menander Rhetor 2.4, 390.4–10 allows orators to invent dream-revelations for effect (cf. the value of visiones in Quintilian Inst. 6.2.29, though he applies this to emotive, descriptive language, e.g., 2.32).
36. Plutarch M. Cato 23.4. Thus a king's prophets might claim to interpret a dream that he had merely made up (Chariton Chaer. 6.8.3; cf. Dan 2:9; of course, political expediency could dictate the outcome of many prophecies, as in 1 Kgs 22:13).
37. Alciphron Farm. 2 (Iophon to Eraston), 3.10, ¶3; Plutarch T.-T. 8.10, Mor. 734D.
38. Pliny Nat. 28.14.54.
39. Homer Il. 2.20–21; Virgil Aen. 5.893–96; Vit. Aes. 33; P. Par. 47; cf. the prophecy in 1 Kgs 22:22–23.
4Q560 1 I, 5 is an incantation to protect against dreams, presumably recognizing that not all are from God.
40. E.g., Homer Il. 23.65, 83–85; Euripides Hec. 30–34, 703–6; Virgil Aen. 1.353–54; 2.268–97,
772–94; 4.351–52; 5.721–23; Ovid Metam. 11.586–88, 635, 650–73; Plutarch Sulla 37.2; Br. Wom.,
Mor. 252F; Apuleius Metam. 8.8; 9.31; cf. Homer Od. 4.795–839; 19.546–49; Appian Hist. rom. 8.1.1;
Arrian Alex. 7.30.2.
41. Ab. R. Nat. 40A; Pesiq. Rab. Kah. 11:23; p. Hag. 2:2, §5; Ket. 12:3, §7; Sanh. 6:6, §2; Eccl. Rab. 9:10,
§1; to my knowledge, the earliest Christian example is Acts Paul 11:6.
42. Greek tradition also allowed for apparitions of deities, not restricted to incubation (see, e.g.,
Plutarch Luc. 10.2–3; 12.1; Sulla 9.4; 28.6). Christian reports of visions or dreams of loved ones being in heaven (e.g., Bennett, Morning, 121) or saying good-bye before departing for heaven (sometimes before arrival of news of their deaths, as my wife experienced at Pastor Ndoundou's passing) are not uncommon; sometimes they also convey information, as in the early Methodist experience in Webster, "Salvation," 379.
For sociological analyses of apparitions and their contexts, see McClenon, Healing, 116–21.
43. On Luke's dream and vision reports, see esp. now Miller, Convinced; for a survey of Lukan scholarship on dreams and visions, see 81–90.
44. See, e.g., Bovon, Studies, 155–61; later, Constantine's claimed vision or dream (for discussion, see, e.g., Price, "Signo"), and later allegedly revelatory dreams (e.g., in 1097 in Hamilton, "Signs," 98); vision accounts appear even among women who knew that men were skeptical of women's reports (see Van
Dijk, "Miracles," 248). Sixteenth-century physician Girolamo Cardano found portents in dreams (Duffin,
Miracles, 22–23); Waldensians accepted visions and prophecies (Toon, "Waldenses," 1026).
45. Herum, "Theology," 35–36, cites Monica's dream of Augustine in Conf. 3.11.19; her vision of safety despite the storm in 6.1.1. Augustine's own ecstasies (Herum cites Conf. 7.10.16; 7.17.23; 9.10.24–25) resemble Neoplatonist contemplation of the divine.
46. See Webster, "Salvation"; Asbury's prophetic dream in Wigger, Saint, 188; John Wesley's reports of visionary experiences of some people he knew (Huyssen, Saw, 106–7).
Visions and Dreams
among some noted figures even in recent Western Christian history,47 including in foundational periods of even some fairly conservative Christian movements.48
Visions and Dreams in Global Christianity Although in the West consideration of dreams is often relegated to the realm of Jungian psychotherapists49 and (more empirically) neurologists, the divinatory or prophetic use of dreams and visions continues to play a role in many societies and religions.50 This remains true in Asian and African Christianity;51 as historian
47. Besides examples in medieval mystics; some mid-eighteenth-century Baptists (revelatory dreams,
Kidd, Awakening, 246); the Welsh Revival of 1904 (Pytches, Come, 133; esp. Harvey, "Agony"; for Evan
Roberts, e.g., White, "Revival," 1); and the like. Note, e.g., Salvation Army founder William Booth (Huyssen,
Saw, 80–82). In some cases, the vision experience is explicitly subjective or appears ambiguous, yet real to the person experiencing it: Charles Finney (91, an extended experience; Prather, Miracles, 126–28); F. B.
Meyer (Huyssen, Saw, 111–12, less subjective); in some cases the language might be partly figurative, but may point to visionary experiences: John Bunyan (109, at conversion); Catherine Marshall (125–26);
Reinhard Bonnke (140). Cf. also Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson's transforming experience of heaven (Kent and Waite, Beyond, ch. 28, citing Robert Thomsen's biography of Wilson).
48. E.g., they were common in early evangelicalism (Noll, Rise, 267), a movement that has been in the twentieth century traditionally more shy concerning extrabiblical "revelation." One may note particularly early Methodists' use of "dreams, portents and special revelations" (idem, Shape, 46), but early radical
Puritans also claimed direct revelations, including in dreams and visions (Kidd, "Healing," 160).
49. Shorter, Witch Doctor, 152–53, notes Jung's "big dream" (Jung, "Symbolic Life," 556); that Freud conceded his inability to explain accurate premonitory dreams (Freud, Interpretation, 61); and that some have argued for genuine precognition in some dreams (citing Dunne, Experiment, 37ff., 50, 59; and esp.
Rycroft, Innocence, 36). On Jung's emphasis on the divine and spirituality, see Rollins, "Wholeness."
50. Dreams have played a part in the Mayan cultural revival in the face of massive displacement and suffering (Tedlock, "Dreams," esp. 453–54, 471); for diagnosis through dreams among the Karanga of Zimbabwe, see Shoko, Religion, 75–76, 78; in much shamanism, see Harner, Way of Shaman, 99–101. In African tradition, see Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, 137, 378–86; Shorter, Witch Doctor, 149–61 (esp. 152–
54); apparitions of Nkai among the Samburu (resembling biblical accounts but with precolonial origins,
Straight, Miracles, 47); altered states of consciousness visions in Haitian Vodun in Crosley, "Universes,"
9–10. Cf. also attacks from witches in dreams (against a former witch, but noting that they eventually gave up after failing to harm him; Merz, "Witch," 203); a witch could expect to kill by this means (Hair,
"Witches," 140). Many Mande "claim to have seen" spirits (McNaughton, Blacksmiths, 11).
51. In the late nineteenth century, see, e.g., McGee, Miracles, 32, 34, 36; early twentieth century, e.g.,
Hickson, Heal, 149 (cf. Hickson's own visions in idem, Bridegroom, 35, 102–5); Sung, Diaries, 9–10,
15–16, 28, 55, 99, 102, 109, 110, 189–90; for summaries regarding the Majority World, see, e.g., Mullin,
History, 279; Pierson, "Context," 21. In African Christian movements, see, e.g., Adeyemo, "Dreams";
Clark, "Challenge," 83; Dayhoff, "Machava"; idem, "Mthethwa"; idem, "Mucavele"; idem, "Vilakoti";
Fuller, "Harman"; idem, "Taiwo"; Gaiya, "Gindiri"; Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 221 (on Isaiah Shembe), 222; Mkhize, "Prayer-Healer," 288 (also related to Shembe's movement); Magaji and Danmallam, "Magaji"; Manana, "Magaji"; Menberu, "Abraham"; Odili, "Okeriaka"; Quinn, "Kivebulaya"
(on an Anglican, 1864–1933); Daneel, Zionism, 13–14; Oosthuizen, Healer-Prophet, 27–28 (on southern
African AICs); Zvanaka, "Churches," 70 (on the Zion Apostolic Church); Bongmba, "Visions" (an AIC in Texas); Sundkler, "Worship," 552–53; Wodi, "Wodi"; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 288; Baker, Enough,
21, 58–59, 62–65, 72, 76, 142, 157, 182; idem, Miracles, 173; Clark, Impartation, 208; Numbere, Vision,
65–69, 74–75, 493. Dreams and visions characterized part of the East African revival (1935–45; see Shaw,
Awakenings, 104). In Asia, cf. Prather, Miracles, 66; Ma, "Santuala," 66, notes a syncretistic group in which all members seek visions (comparing the visionary emphasis also among mountain Pentecostals); Tari,
Appendix E
Mark Noll points out, African Christians "are not surprised when Jesus speaks to them in dreams and visions," a pattern consistent with narratives in Acts.52 Asian examples appear in a range of countries that include Myanmar,53 China,54 India,55
Indonesia,56 Singapore,57 and the Philippines.58 For example, dreams and visions figured heavily in the Nias revival in Indonesia in 1916.59 They also appear in orphanages and among other groups of children in Asia.60 They flourished in China some time ago particularly conspicuously during a particularly intense period of Wind, 13, 146, and Breeze, 87–88, notes guidance through visions in Indonesia. Shorter, Witch Doctor,
160–61, cites an example of what he took to be accurate African precognition through a dream.
52. Noll, Shape, 23–24. In much of Africa, between one-fifth and one-third of Christians claim to have prophesied ("Islam and Christianity," 212), and even more to have received direct revelation from God (ibid., 213). Koch, Zulus, 138–39, 200–201, reports cases where God provided visionary revelation to illiterate new believers who lacked full access to Scripture. These experiences flourish in spite of many early missionaries' condemnation of attending to dreams (Lagerwerf, Witchcraft, 17–18).
53. See Khai, "Pentecostalism," 269, 270.
54. Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 9, 39, 59; Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 101; Wagner, "World," 85; popular-level claims about dreams in China, Yun, Heavenly Man, 32, 35, 135, 137, 178, 180, 181, 189,
197, 305–6, 315, 341; Danyun, Lilies, 84; Jones, Wonders, 75, 103 (recognizing the foreigner, a missionary, seen in a dream); about visions, Yun, Heavenly Man, 58, 60, 68–69, 73, 103, 108–9, 122–23, 124, 254;
Baker, Visions (2006); Danyun, Lilies, 43, 49–50, 195, 210, 351–52. For visions in the Manchurian revival of 1908, see Shaw, Awakening, 185.
55. E.g., nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century examples in McGee, Miracles, 34, 36, 82. See also Sadhu Sundar Singh in Lynch-Watson, Robe, 82–83, 136, 138 (though it is difficult for a biblical scholar to avoid voicing reservations about the content of some of the later ones, esp. related to Swedenborg; see in more detail here Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 214–19); in some cases information conveyed in his visions seems to have proved genuine when tested objectively (Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 220–21). For contemporary reports of and comments on his visions, based on his own words, see Streeter and Appasamy, Message,
86–123, though these writers considered suppressing this information for their Western audience, 87;
Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 162–64, 211–21 (for a nuanced evaluation, see Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 165,
221). He distinguished these experiences from his one, converting vision of Christ (Prakash, Preaching, 23;
Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 212; narrated in, e.g., Adeney, Kingdom, 121–22); the visions, sometimes more than ten times a month, included conversations with spiritual beings and started after his fast (Prakash,
Preaching, 70). These came especially in his later years, in 1926–29 (Appasamy, Sundar Singh, 211).
56. In Timor, see, e.g., Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 284 (following, e.g., Brougham, "Work," 167);
Wilkerson, Beyond, 76, 78, 81 (on a popular level).
57. Green, Asian Tigers, 56, 96.
58. Ma, "Manifestations"; idem, "Vanderbout," 135.
59. Dermawan, "Study," 260.
60. In an orphanage in early twentieth-century China, see also Baker, Visions (2006, passim; the vision on 131 is actually more biblically accurate without the footnote, which did not belong to the original edition; cf. also comment in McGee, Miracles, 147); among other children in Szechuan, China, see
Holder, "Revival" (along with much prophesying); among children in the Philippines, Ma, "Vanderbout,"
135; among young women at Ramabai's mission for "orphan brides," see, e.g., Anderson, "Signs," 201; in Myanmar, see Khai, "Pentecostalism," 270, noting that the pastor's theological training has predisposed him against it, but that he was compelled by the unexpected phenomena to accept it; Indonesia, see
Koch, Zulus, 207 (prophecies); Tari, Wind, 51–54 (various experiences, including visions). In Africa, see
Koch, Zulus, 208–16 (a girl's accurate visions), 217–18 (prophecy through a child). In the United States, see, e.g., Marszalek, Miracles, 43–44; the child's vision in connection with the Azusa Street Revival, in Olena, Horton, 34–36. Children have also proved susceptible to revival phenomena more generally (cf. their presence at Cane Ridge; Wolffe, Expansion, 59; Wacker, "Living," 426–27); traditional cultures also report preteen children being possessed (Southall, "Possession," 242).
Visions and Dreams
persecution over about three years.61 Despite skepticism in parts of the society, such claims also do appear in the West.62 Visions and dreams seem to proliferate particularly in times of spiritual intensity, for example, the Presbyterian revivals in the Hebrides in 1939.63
Dreams sometimes figure in the rise of new religious movements64 and appear in call experiences in various religious cultures.65 Not surprisingly, many clergy in Africa, both Catholic and Protestant, are called to ministry through dreams.66 For example,
Margaret Wanjiru had a vision calling her to ministry; her humble ministry in healing, prophecy, and deliverance gained much attention in Nairobi, and her Sunday morning
61. Aikman, Jesus in Beijing, 83.
62. See, e.g., Ten Boom, Tramp, 189 (Ten Boom's vision of angels); Malarkey, Boy, 94; vision examples
(fairly ecumenically distributed) in Huyssen, Saw, 24, 79, 118–19 (including for a founder's business), 122,
127, 132–33, 150, 183, 186, 195–201; dreams in ibid., 102–3, 119–20, 137; cf. Llewellyn, "Events," 251–52,
258–59. In early modern Pentecostalism, see, e.g., Woodworth-Etter, Diary, 111; idem, Miracles, 109–10;
Menzies, Anointed, 30 (a girl in a cataleptic state during Swedish revival meetings in 1896 Minnesota);
McGee, People of Spirit, 269; cf. Jones, Wonders, 17; more recently in the West, e.g., White, Spirit, 98 (a call to urban ministry through a vision); Alexander, Signs, 124–25 (urging ethnic reconciliation); Rumph,
Signs, 83–90; Deere, Voice, passim; Williams, Signs, 141–42; Storms, Convergence, 60–61, 64, 78–80; Stibbe,
Prophetic Evangelism, 95; Baker, Enough, 49–50, 55, 181; idem, Miracles, 31, 199; Moreland and Issler,
Faith, 198–99; Clark, Impartation, 120, 145–48, 200; Anderson, Miracles, 94–95; Bentley, Miraculous, 185;
Alexander, Signs, 115–30 (esp. 115–17); dreams in Pullinger, Dragon, 28, 106, 123, 135; visions in ibid.,
29, 200, 232; dreams in Jackson, Quest, 176, 335; visions in ibid., 70–71, 298. Though perhaps rightly suspecting that many vision claims were the product of human imagination, Baxter, Healing, 256–57, recounts a genuine and thrice-repeated vision he experienced.
63. Peckham, Sounds, 107, 234. Although such phenomena are often associated particularly with Pentecostals today, this revival occurred among strict Calvinistic Presbyterians. Cf. visionary trances during Scottish awakenings in 1859–60 (Bebbington, "Clash," 79).
64. Lanternari, "Dreams"; Shorter, Witch Doctor, 153; among African Zionist movements and independent churches, see Green, History, 318; for the visionary call of Steven Tafa Shava, founder of one AIC, see
Shoko, Religion, 115; cf. the dream that, according to one tradition, stood behind Sardar Birsa's movement, in Singh, "Prophet," 107.
65. Among Mayans today, see Tedlock, "Dreams," 455–59. Dreams sometimes recruit priests in traditional religions (e.g., Verger, "Trance," 51, though noting that this was not the most common method; one method in Krippner, "Call," 191; after a quest, in Hultkrantz, Healing, 62–63) or portend possession
(Colson, "Possession," 73); a healer's calling in a dream in Binsbergen, "Witchcraft," 225–26. Lewis, Ecstatic
Religion, 37, notes that mystical call experiences appear in some form of many major religions, as well as in tribal religions (including Eskimo shamans, the focus there); in Majority World Christian movements, see, e.g., Akinwumi, "Idahosa"; Dayhoff, "Vilakati"; Hayes, "Mthembu"; Khai, "Pentecostalism," 269 (the vision of Kam Cin Hau, in Myanmar).
66. Sundkler, Bara Bukoba, 98 (cited in Shorter, Witch Doctor, 153); in Zionism, Daneel, Zionism, 13–14; examples of callings in dreams in Burgess, Revolution, 160; Adelaja, "Land," 43–44; Walls, Movement, 88;
Emmanuel Itapson, interview, April 8, 2011; visions in Numbere, Vision, 33–34; Adeboye with Mfon,
"Preparing," 206; Sammy Wanyonyi's childhood vision in Marszalek, Miracles, 237; a Maasai prophet figure in Fischer, "Orishi," 24–25 (esp. 25); an AIC founder in Githieya, "Church," 232; in Latin America, see, e.g., Alamino, Footsteps, 23; Marostica, "Learning," 210 (Annacondia); in India, e.g., Yohannan, Revolution,
127–28; Huyssen, Saw, 93–94; in Korea, Kim, "Healing," 275 (Yonggi Cho's vision); in the West, e.g., the vision reported in Poloma, Assemblies, 73–74; Ten Boom, Hiding Place, 234–36; Osborn, Healing, 276;
Shaw, Awakening, 138; Huyssen, Saw, 54–55, 80–82 (William Booth), 176; Tallman, Shakarian, 147;
McGee, Miracles, 70; Zagrans, Miracles, 4; Seymour's dream in Alexander, Fire, 114. Note also a visionary call behind the Indonesian Timor revival in Wiyono, "Timor Revival," 278; the call of Indonesian evangelist Petrus Octavianus by a vision (Crawford, Miracles, 73); another in Indonesia in Tari, Wind, 159.
Appendix E
services draw about five thousand.67 One doctoral student from Burkina Faso whom I interviewed, Elisée Ouoba, was called to ministry through a repeated, audible voice.68
Some report that in some regions, large numbers or even most of those converted to Christianity today testify that they were converted through dreams or visions;69 individual examples could be multiplied around the world70 (with cases from many
67. Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 151; Alexander, Signs, 123.
68. Elisée Ouoba, interview, March 16, 2009. He is a PhD student at Wheaton College; he is from the Evangelical Church of SIM in Burkina Faso (Église Évangélique SIM au Burkina Faso), which was heavily influenced by earlier cessationist Western teachers. For other callings through an audible voice in Africa, see, e.g., Burgess, Revolution, 79; Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 329; in Asia, Tari, Wind, 142–43
(noting on 143 that most of the ministry teams in Timor had heard God's audible voice at times); in the United States, e.g., John Stewart, who ministered among the Wyandot people in 1816 (McGee, Miracles,
10); Anna Gulick, on her experience (interview, March 10, 2011). Sister Briege McKenna also felt called to a healing ministry through a voice that she at first thought was from a human, though no one else was present (McKenna, Miracles, 5–6); so also Amanda Berry Smith (Pope-Levison, Pulpit, 89) and perhaps
(the narrative is not quite clear if this occasion was audible) Jarena Lee (Riggs, Witness, 6; Pope-Levison,
Pulpit, 27; Andrews, Sisters, 35).
69. E.g., Moreland, Triangle, 169; Moreland and Issler, Faith, 151–53; Kraft, Worldview, 493; Otis, Giants,
157–60; cf. Becken, "Healing Communities," 233; Guthrie, "Breakthrough," 26; Morgan, "Impasse," 61;
Kure, "Light," 184 (revelations); Hausfeld, "Understanding," 75; cf. Anonymous, "History in Indonesia,"
147 (through dreams and other supernatural means, in Indonesia); Crawford, Miracles, 92, 94 (in Indonesia, through a dream); for some examples claiming conversions through visions or auditions, see, e.g., Knapstad,
"Power," 82 (a vision), 83 (a vision), 87–88 (a recurring dream).
70. E.g., Kwan, "Argument," 499 (conversion through a vision in nineteenth-century China); Goforth,
Goforth, 216 (a conversion through a dream, after a request for one, in early twentieth-century China);
Anderson, Pelendo, 33–36 (a voice, in Central Africa, with an attendant sign); Mohammad, "Saw"; Burgess,
Revolution, 250; Chesnut, "Exorcising," 181–82 (apparently; Brazil); Kim, "Healing," 273 (Korea); Olson,
Bruchko, 151 (a vision, leading to most of a Yuko village's conversion in South America); Bush and Pegues, Move, 53, 62; Yun, Heavenly Man, 50; Stearns, Vision, 17, 151, 185 (many among unevangelized peoples); Filson, "Study," 150 (a postmortem vision; after the woman returned to life she was converted and [151] engaged in evangelism), 154 (a dream preparing one for a particular witness); Tari, Wind,
143–45; idem, Breeze, 19; Koch, Zulus, 34, 143, 150, 202, 224 (through dreams; converted through visions in 141–42, 159, 225; cf. dreams for repentance in 227–31); Osborn, Healing, 298–99; Stibbe, Prophetic
Evangelism, 5–6, 17–20 (in the West, 101–2), 98 (a vision; in the West, 104–5); McCallie, Trophy, 5–6
(a vision, if literal); Pope-Levison, Pulpit, 51 (Sojourner Truth); Marszalek, Miracles, 57–58 (a Native
American's NDE vision, ultimately leading to conversion), 133; dreams in the Jesus Film newsletter, Jan.
15, 2010; regarding dreams, Bush and Pegues, Move, 54, 62; a dream in Bredesen, Miracle, 154–58 (also in Llewellyn, "Events," 249); visions associated with (before, during, or immediately after) conversions in Huyssen, Saw, 35–36 (Graham Kerr's wife), 42 (ca. 1900), 48–49, 54–55 (for thirty minutes), 89,
104–5, 170–72, 175; Levitt, Beef, 1–3, 48; cf. the revelatory light in Guldseth, "Power," 4; a voice in the heart in Steil, "Ears," 8; Eduardo Lara Reyes and Nimsi A. Arcila Leal (interview, Feb. 10, 2010), regarding a contact's new commitment through two persons' independent but same dreams over a period of two days. Jan Nylund, a PhD student, shared with me how a figure spoke words to his Iranian wife, Maria, that she later learned (before becoming a Christian) belonged to Jesus in the Gospels (Nov. 23, 2009).
My former student Henry Baldwin, one of the Tuskegee Airmen, also told me of a light that filled the room at the time of his commitment to Christ, but at the time I hoped he would write his entire account and I neglected to record the exact date of our conversation. Cf. an example in early Methodism (Wigger,
Saint, 93); Ekechi, "Medical Factor," 294, notes the influence of a vision on corporate conversion in 1873
Onitsha. Some argue that some religious experiences can be self-authenticating (as epistemic miracles;
Oakes, "Experience").
Visions and Dreams
years, for example, in India).71 On one occasion, it is reported that many persons who venerated the sun were converted through the Indonesian preaching team when a vision of Jesus appeared just above the sun, seen by everyone present.72 On another, a Hausa man recounted that an angel appeared to him three times and read to him from a book, then sent him on a long journey for an explanation to Christians, where he heard the same passage as they discipled him.73
Healings are also reported in conjunction with visions74 and dreams.75 For example, when Anna Gulick was a Lutheran missionary in Japan in the mid-1950s, she was receiving penicillin in various forms for her allergies. One night after spraying it in her nose, however, her "heart went into fibrillation due to anaphylactic shock from penicillin." She knew she had only five minutes to live in this state, and it was too late for her friends to get help, but suddenly she could see only Jesus at the foot of her bed. Without speaking, she communicated from her heart that "if He still had work for me to do, I was willing to stay." Then the room returned to normal, and her heart was beating fine. The next day the doctor warned her not to take penicillin again in any form. From that time forward she lost her fear of death, knowing that Jesus would be with her again.76 That was more than fifty years
71. E.g., McBane, "Bhils," 139 (two people both having visions the same night urging them to accept
Christ, leading to twenty-two baptisms in Nov. 1901); Lynch-Watson, Robe, 18 (Sadhu Sundar Singh,
Dec. 17, 1904; also in Davey, Robe, 23–24); Flint, "Brahman's Son"; "Healings in India" (probably the same person as "Healeth: in India"); Boehr, Medicine, 55–56; Huyssen, Saw, 56–58, citing J. T. Seamands
(a Hindu priest).
72. Koch, Revival, 143. An account is also told of Jesus's sorrowful face appearing on the wall in sight of an entire congregation shortly before the Great War began, with many witnesses and many conversions
(Boddy, "Face," noting on 114 that nothing was unusual about the lighting).
73. Talbot, "Vision," 276–77, from her interview with Sue Davis, who had interpreted for the man
(who became a pastor). Talbot compares as analogous an independent account in Bede.
74. E.g., Duffin, Miracles, 172–74; Zhaoming, "Chinese Denominations," 450–51; Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 59–60; Young, "Miracles in History," 117; McGee, Miracles, 219; Bush and Pegues, Move,
51, 61; Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 55; Beadle, "Healings," 6; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil,
87–88; Glew, "Experience," 81; Tari, Breeze, 58–59 (raising); Anderson, Pelendo, 111–12; Hiatt, "Vision";
Eusbarina Acosta Estévez, interview, Aug. 7, 2010; Wilson, "Miracle Events," 271; Karnofsky, "Vision,"
15–16 (a medieval example); Bredesen, Miracle, 24; DeGrandis, Miracles, 89–90; Anderson, Miracles,
179–81; Huyssen, Saw, 27–28, 144–48, 157–62; Moolenburgh, Meetings, 72–84 (though none here are naturally inexplicable); Schiappacasse, Heals, 20 (cf. also 60); a non-Western testimony sent to me by Douglas LeRoy, Nov. 9, 2009; cf. Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 87–88; Jones, Wonders, 73; Marszalek,
Miracles, 19–21; in other circles, Beard, Mission, 10. It is reported that Julian of Norwich, thought to be lying on her deathbed, saw visions of Jesus and recovered in 1373 (Llewellyn, "Events," 244).
75. For dreams and healings (or prescriptions or instructions where to seek healing), see, e.g., Shorter,
Witch Doctor, 153–54; Zempleni, "Symptom," 119; Duffin, Miracles, 170–72 (incubation, 168–69); Bush and Pegues, Move, 51, 61; Szabo, "Healings"; Tomkins, Wesley, 60 (Charles Wesley's healing); Burgess,
Revolution, 224; Alexander, Fire, 114; Salmon, Heals, 131–32; Ikin, Concepts, 106–7; Woodard, Faith,
94; Koch, Zulus, 76, 121 (marital reconciliation); Hodgson, "Sorcerer," 5. Cf. Jacques Moussounga, Sept.
8, 2005; Joshua Obeng, interview, Jan. 28, 2009; Antoinette Malombé, interview, July 13, 2008; Jeanne
Mabiala, interview, July 29, 2008; Lakshmi Devi, personal correspondence, Oct. 29, 2010; Anonymous,
"History in Indonesia," 137. Cf. also the Muslim physician alerted to the lymphoma in his body at stage 1, when it was treatable, through a dream he attributes to Allah, in Matthews and Clark, Faith Factor, 74–75.
76. Anna Gulick, personal correspondence, Aug. 10, 2009; further details, Aug. 13, 2009; interview,
March 10, 2011. I was introduced to Anna through our mutual friend Onesimus Asiimwe. Dr. Nicole
Appendix E
ago; Anna is still going strong, now an Anglican deacon with a lively and articulate sense of humor, at age ninety-two.77
Similarly, Australian Markan scholar Rikk E. Watts recounts an incident that followed an extended time of prayer when he was about eighteen years old. A man visiting his family's church noted that he was not a Christian but that he had seen the church's name in a dream, in which he also heard that he would be healed there.
Although the man had not identified his specific health problem and Rikk had not observed his entrance, he felt led to pray for the man's lower legs. Suddenly the man began shouting that he was healed, and afterward inquired how Rikk knew that the problem was with his feet.78
My wife, a second-generation Christian from Central Africa, collected in her journal various examples of Christians' dreams and visions that were taken very seriously and often proved (albeit in retrospect) strikingly accurate. Such dreams included those portending imminent war, before it was commonly known that war was coming, and only shortly before war came. (One may observe that some such dreams continued after the war as well, though this time they might have reflected posttraumatic stress syndrome.) When my wife was a girl, another person had a vision of her leaving the country, not a common practice in Congo for people of her family's means at the time. She was seen returning while the airport was being bombed, also an uncommon thought at the time, since the nation had long been at peace, so the family prayed that God would avert this crisis. Some twenty years later, when she finished her PhD and was returning to Congo, her flight plans were diverted while shooting and bombing occurred in the airport where she would have landed.79 Others had visions when she was in her country, including when she was a refugee in the forest, that she would eventually marry a white minister from the West. They did not know about our friendship, and we became engaged only after the war ended; nor did she reveal the prophecies to me until we were engaged.80 Not all dreams are taken as predictive, however, and even many who regularly look for meanings often find their sense obscure.
Matthews notes that the arrhythmia can often be reversed medically through electric shock or high-dose steroids, but it would not normally reverse itself spontaneously, as here (personal correspondence, Aug.
16–17, 2009).
77. At the time she shared the testimony with me, she was only about one month shy of ninety-one
(personal correspondence, Aug. 14, 2009).
78. Rikk E. Watts, interview, Nov. 17, 2010.
79. Coco Moïse still remembered her especially by this prophecy when they talked around Nov. 30,
2008. Among other long-range prophecies, one might compare the prophecy given to Moses Tay's mother when she was pregnant with him about his significant future ministry; he became a doctor but eventually became the Anglican archbishop of the province of South East Asia (Green, Asian Tigers, 101–2). Many
Christians could offer many reports of even such long-range prophecies, although again many prophecies are uttered that do not come to pass. One could dismiss many examples as coincidence, but some are precise and come from those who regularly prophesy accurately. Nevertheless, I lack means to quantify the relative probabilities.
80. As of the time she supplied this information to me, she has never been charismatic or Pentecostal; she belonged to her country's major Protestant church. I could cite additional examples of this sort of
Visions and Dreams
Such reports are frequent. Thus Dr. Horace Russell, mentioned in chapter 9, shared the recent experience of a Baptist deacon he knows near Philadelphia, originally from Trinidad. She dreamed that her approximately twelve-year-old grandson was abducted by a white man and taken away, yet remained safe. Not knowing what the dream meant, she simply prayed. Four weeks later (and less than two months before he shared the account with me), a white man claiming to be a police officer told the boy to get in his car. The boy complied, yet was released unharmed; the police afterward insisted that none of their officers would have done that and promised to investigate. The dream, it is suggested, may have invited prayer to protect the boy in a coming dangerous situation.81
Besides visions and dreams, accurate prophecies are widely attested (with a higher degree of accuracy apparently in some circles than in others),82 although experience that I have witnessed firsthand (even from my own journal over the years), but the above examples should suffice to illustrate that many people do take such experiences very seriously.
81. Horace Russell (interview, Oct. 26, 2009).
82. For popular modern claims of charismatic Christian prophecy, sometimes accurate to the detail, see, e.g., Anderson, Pentecostalism, 71–72; White, Spirit, 185–86 (noting both accuracy and inaccuracy),
213; McKenna, Miracles, 6–7, 9–13, 23; Libersat, "Epilogue," 140; Gutierrez, Mujer de Milagros, 76–77
(including a severe hurricane); Jones, Wonders, 67; Crandall, Raising, 137–38 (a vision); Tari, Wind,
31–32, 54, 147; Breeze, 15; Martell-Otero (interview, April 22, 2010, regarding her father); Koch, Zulus,
219–20, 232 (vision), 234–35, 240–41; Marszalek, Miracles, 43–44, 166, 244–45; Bennett, Morning,
105; Deere, Power of Spirit, 36–37, 133, 210–12; Alexander, Signs, 121; Jackson, Quest, 179, 197–98, 211
(but also inaccurate ones, 208, 236–37); Pytches, Come, 97–100; idem, Thundered, 10–11, 18, 20–21,
82–84, 136 (some more controversial than others; inaccurate ones on 4–10, 109, 113–14, 150–51; and in Buckingham, "Afterword," 150–51); Storms, Convergence, 52, 60, 64, 66, 76–77, 78–80, 86–87; idem,
Guide, 37–38, 44, 45–47, 81–84, 85, 94, 100; Yun, Heavenly Man, 79, 81; Stibbe, Prophetic Evangelism,
1–3, 4–5, 14–17, 49–50, 59–60, 62–64, 66–67, 70, 107, 129–30, 134–35, 159, 163, 166, 167, 195; Baker,
Enough, 27; Moreland and Issler, Faith, 198–99; Best, Supernatural, 54–57, 92–93, 101–2, 107, 109–11,
125, 127–28, 199; Clark, Impartation, 134, 200; Johnson, Heaven, 102; Venter, Healing, 127; Numbere,
Vision, 453; Robertson, Miracles, 57; Anderson, Miracles, 232–34; Osborn, Christ, 83 (firsthand experience with John Sung's prophetic gift); cf. Brownell, "Experience," 218; Pullinger, Dragon, 129; Malarkey, Boy,
175; Brian Stewart (interview, Aug. 7, 2010); Kayon Murray Johnson, interview, Oct. 14. 2010; Simon
Hauger, phone interview, Dec. 4, 2009, about another person; note also false prophecies (for two among many possible examples) in Alnor, Heaven, 102; Numbere, Vision, 436. Storms also points to occasions in history (here Spurgeon's ministry) where the phenomenon of prophecy occurred by other names (Guide,
89–90, citing Spurgeon, Autobiography, 2:226–27; also in Storms, "View," 201–3); see Lloyd-Jones, Spirit,
45, 88, for prophecy among the Scottish Covenanters. For claims of accurate non-Christian prophecy, see, e.g., Ashe, Miracles, 165–66 (attributing the accuracy not to the tarot cards but to "unconscious" knowledge; but McClenon, Events, 139, argues that statistically tarot readings seem to prove correct only coincidentally); Harner, Way of Shaman, 97–98 (accurate shamanic precognition); Kibicho, "Continuity,"
381 (Akikuyu prophecy); Salamone, "Bori," 18 (knowledge of the anthropologist's thoughts); Grindal,
"Heart," 72 (mysterious knowledge, in northwestern Ghana); Scherberger, "Shaman," 60 (mysterious knowledge, among a people in Guyana); Turner, "Advances," 36 (a Native American divining where an archaeologist would find material); Turner, "Actuality," 7 (her experience of what she afterward viewed as precognition, through shamanic meditation, also in Turner, Healers, 161); McClenon, Events, 135 (a Protestant Chinese psychic claiming the help of Buddhist spirits, with extraordinary knowledge, sometimes including diagnosing problems before medical tests had done so); see Montefiore, Miracles, 23–24, on arguments for telepathy; 41–42, for clairvoyance; 51–52, for precognition; and 107–9, on veridical hallucinations. Although the laboratory basis for psychic ability seems questionable to me, even some scientists as respected as Freeman Dyson accept human psychic abilities (Herrick, Mythologies, 152).
Appendix E
these must be balanced with prophecies that did not prove accurate.83 In such settings, people may use the predictive element as a warning rather than assuming an unalterable future;84 the retrospective component may also be used at times to interpret dreams and presumably to distinguish what are believed to be accurate dreams (more apt to be revelatory) and revelations from inaccurate ones.85
Some predictions, however, are specific and narrow enough to seem more unusual.86 For example, in some cases prophecies have been said to expose government agents secretly infiltrating services.87 I have no way to provide a statistical comparison,88 but I can at least say that the probability of coincidence seems very low when (as in one example above) various persons independently prophesied to my future wife that she would marry a white minister.89 Very few white people lived in her country, and at least one of the several, independent prophecies was given to her while she was a refugee in the forest, with little natural prospect of the prophecy being fulfilled. (Those who offered the prophecy independently did not even know one another.) I offer just one of a number of dreams that could be considered significant that occurred during the course of working on this book, which I happened to write down in my calendar: on November 10, 2008, I dreamed of a truck from the oncoming lane forcing Médine off the road; I warned her and then prayed.
As she was driving to the university, a car from the oncoming lane pulled out from behind a truck and nearly hit her. Out of thousands of dreams, of course, some will coincide with events; moreover, it was not precisely a truck that almost struck her, and I must concede that we do have quite a lot of reckless drivers in this area.
Divination is typically a matter of probabilities, requiring repetition of the procedures to achieve greater confidence (among the Mande, see McNaughton, Blacksmiths, 56).
83. Examples in McGee, Miracles, 106–7, 125; and often. On the problems of coincidence within large samples and confirmation bias, see, e.g., Shermer, "Miracle," although some events are too improbable or difficult naturally to be explained in such terms, and such an approach can discount larger patterns among particular people and groups of people.
84. E.g., Burgess, Revolution, 161. Cultures that regard some dreams as revelatory usually do not regard the revelations as irreversible (in the ancient Near East, see, e.g., Walton, "Genesis," 121); similarly, omens in Pliny Nat. 28.4.17.
85. Cf. the experiment in Charpak and Broch, Debunked, 2–3, where 69 percent of students thought their "individualized" personality profiles based on their dreams were fairly accurate—though all the assigned profiles were identical.
86. Koch, Zulus, 232, notes that he had preached for years against visions, dreams, and the like until he encountered genuine revelatory ones in places of revival.
87. In postwar Nigeria, during a military government, in Numbere, Vision, 81.
88. Chandra shekar, "Possession Syndrome," 89, observes that many prophecies of Indian spirit mediums are vague; the medium elicited praise if the prediction came true, and if it did not the recipients blamed their own fate rather than the medium. In such cases, accuracy is not readily falsifiable; one might draw analogies for some prophecies in Christian circles.
89. E.g., her journal on Feb. 27, 1999. On other occasions, two different people without direct contact independently prophesied the same thing about one of our family members on the same day (e.g., two prophecies recounted to us around Nov. 13, 2008).
Visions and Dreams
Statistically, even specific and unlikely coincidences are likely to happen sometimes. Thus some critics offer the example of thinking about someone one has not seen for a long time just a few minutes before learning of the person's death, and they point out that we would expect, out of a U.S. population of (at the time) some
295 million, for this coincidence to happen to about seventy-seven people each day.90 Such observations are especially important with vague dreams, low-level coincidences, and so forth; it does not, however, easily explain the coincidence of such events within our particular sample size. (For example, out of roughly 300 million people in the United States, the odds of a given person being one of those seventy-seven in a given day over the course of one's life, even just once, are less than one-tenth of 1 percent. For it to happen multiple times to the same person, or the same event to multiple persons at once, as in the example below, makes the odds significantly lower.91) One could appeal to a variation of the gambler's fallacy: If one comes across a roulette wheel that always yields a particular number, is it more probable that one has chanced upon the one roulette wheel of putative millions that yield this number, or that the wheel is fixed?
Regarding the particular sort of example offered by critics, examples might be provided. In one case in our family, when Pastor Ndoundou, known in Congo for miracles, passed, my wife, then a student in France, and many others dreamed of his passing.92 Not knowing of others' dreams, my wife dreamed of his passing the night that it occurred, hearing about his passing only the next morning; in the dream, Pastor Ndoundou gestured farewell to her and those with her. On the other side of the discussion, everyone knew that Pastor Ndoundou had been ill, so for some this factor could mitigate the unusual character of the possible revelations. Such coincidences are difficult to quantify. Similarly, on January 23, 2011,
I dreamed that I visited my first pastor and his wife and found them very happy.
I cannot recall dreaming of them in the roughly thirty-five years since I had met them; I had not been in contact or received information about them for a long time, except hearing perhaps a year earlier that the wife had passed away. That evening his granddaughter wrote to inform me that he had passed away two days before.93 Again, how would one quantify this probability?
When, however, inexplicably accurate knowledge happens repeatedly in the same circle or to the same person (as is the case with some persons I know), we
90. Shermer, "Miracle." He adjusts the "premonition" probability calculations in Charpak and Broch,
Debunked, 61–62, who argue that a premonition of this sort is statistically likely to happen sixty-five times a day in the United States. I suspect that the odds may be higher but work with their odds, since the cumulative, exponential weight of multiple cases with a particular person would render the improbability significantly greater than what I note.
91. I work generously from an eighty-year lifetime with about 29,200 days.
92. Médine learned about one of the many cases only years later, when a family friend, Papa Nzouhou, reported that dream (roughly five days before Pastor Ndoundou's passing) on the occasion of the only other time he had such a dream, about Médine's father perhaps two months before his passing. She learned of many others' dreams, however, soon after Pastor Ndoundou had passed.
93. Lisa Prysock, personal correspondence, Jan. 23, 2011.
Appendix E
are talking about an extremely improbable occurrence, difficult to account for purely naturalistically. In such cases, it might seem more probable that the "roulette wheel" is "fixed." Those who prophesy accurately most regularly inspire the most trust, though even the intensely pneumatic early Christian movement apparently recognized that prophets remained fallible (1 Cor 14:29).