In Christian beliefs, light plays an important role. One of the key episodes of the Christian mystery - the Transfiguration of Christ - is associated with the manifestation of divine light. Light plays an equally important role in one of the main Christian sacraments - baptism.
The symbolism of baptism is extremely complex and ambiguous, but the elements associated with flame and illumination with light play almost the main role in it. Justin, Gregory Nazianzen and other church fathers called baptism enlightenment (Greek photismos). At the same time, they were based on two statements of the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews (6, 4; 10, 32), when he calls those initiated into the Christian sacraments, that is, those who were baptized, enlightened.
Already in the II century, Justin mentions a legend that at the time of the baptism of Christ "a flame shot up over the Jordan." The Holy Spirit is represented as a flame; his descent on the apostles in iconography is depicted with tongues of flame. Thus, already at an early stage of the formation of Christianity, a doctrine was developed stating that spiritual perfection, holiness are associated not only with the contemplation of Christ in the body of Glory, manifested to the spiritual gaze of the saint, but also with external manifestations: light emanates from the saint, or his face shines like a flame.
Another source of these ideas is the sacrament of the Transfiguration of the Lord on the Mountain (later identified with Mount Tabor).
Glow of Seraphim of Sarov
There were many rumors about Seraphim of Sarov, who lived at the beginning of the 19th century. The disciple, who later published the "Revelations" of the elder, reports that he once saw Father Seraphim surrounded by such a bright light that it was impossible to look at him.
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"I cannot look at you, father," he exclaimed, "your eyes are like a flash of lightning, your face is brighter than the sun, so it hurts my eyes to look at you."
Then St. Seraphim began to pray - and the disciple was able to raise his eyes and look at him.
“I looked - and the fear of God seized me. Imagine the face of a person speaking to you from the center of the sun disk, from the brightness of its shining midday rays. You see his moving lips, the changing expression of his eyes, hear his voice, feel his hand on your shoulder, but you see neither her nor the speaker's body, but you see only a shining light that floods everything for many yards around, illuminating a snow-covered field with its rays and snow flakes falling from the sky."
There are other similar cases with Christian believers. Righteous Seraphina de Dno, nun of the Carmelite monastery in Capri (died in 1699), became famous for her frantic prayers. Her face during prayer or after the sacrament was like fire, and her eyes shone with flame.
The story of Dr. R. M. Buke
Dr. R. M. Buke (1837-1902) was one of the most famous Canadian psychiatrists of the day. He chaired the Department of Nervous and Mental Diseases at Western University, Ontario, and in 1890 was elected president of the American Medical Psychological Association. Shortly before his death, he published Cosmic Consciousness, which William James called "an important contribution to psychology."
Dr. Buke believed that some people are capable of reaching a higher than ordinary level of consciousness, which he called cosmic consciousness. In his opinion, the achievement of this state is confirmed, first of all, by the experience of subjective luminophania. His book contains many testimonies of luminophany, ranging from the story of Buddha and the conversion of the Apostle Paul to the experience of his contemporaries.
It was no accident that Dr. R. M. Buke became interested in luminophany. He personally encountered this phenomenon when he was 35 years old. He and two of his friends spent the evening reading poetry by Wadsworth, Shelley, Keats, Browning, and Whitman, whom they all loved so much. The friends said goodbye after midnight, and the doctor, hiring a carriage (it was in England), went home to the other side of the city.
“He was in a state of quiet, almost passive delight. And suddenly - and nothing foreshadowed this - he found himself shrouded in something like a flaming cloud. For a moment, he thought about the fire that had happened in the big city, but immediately realized that the source of the light was inside himself.
And then he was seized with a sense of delight, immeasurable joy, accompanied - or replaced - by an intellectual insight that cannot be described. For a moment, the light of Brahman flashed in consciousness, like lightning, to forever leave behind the memory of Heaven …
He understood and knew that the Cosmos is not dead matter, but a living Presence, that the human soul is immortal … that at the heart of the world lies what we call love, and there is not a single living being that will not acquire happiness over time. In a few seconds of this insight, he learned more than in many months and years of study. At the same time, much was revealed to him that one cannot learn simply by studying the world from books and living in it."
So emotionally, he described his condition as if from a third person.
Dr. Buke adds that he never experienced anything like this for the rest of his life. He came to the conclusion that the realization of cosmic consciousness is associated with the feeling of being immersed in a flame or in a scarlet cloud, or, rather, with the feeling that this cloud or scarlet light is filling the brain.
This feeling is accompanied by such emotions as joy, confidence, the experience of triumph, the feeling that you are saved, and with them - immediately or a moment later - comes intellectual enlightenment, which is impossible to describe. It is best to compare this instantaneous insight with a flash of lightning in the darkness of the night, when suddenly a landscape appears before the traveler, previously hidden behind a curtain of darkness.
The doctor cites the case of a woman coded under the initials A. J. S.
As a child, she fell and injured her spine. With a beautiful voice, she devoted a lot of energy to singing and dreamed of becoming a singer, but physical weakness was actually an insurmountable obstacle to her dream.
After the wedding, her health deteriorated even more and, despite all the worries of doctors and households, she began to fade away before our eyes. The pain in the spine became so unbearable that it was impossible to sleep, and then the family sent her to a sanatorium. However, there was no improvement; she was ready to commit suicide and was just waiting for an opportunity when a strange event happened to her.
Once, lying in bed, she suddenly felt that absolute peace descended on her.
“I fell asleep in order to wake up in a few hours and find that a stream of light is streaming around me. I was worried. And then I heard that someone said: "Everything is fine, don't worry!" These words were repeated over and over again. It was not even a voice, but I clearly and clearly heard the words … It seemed to me that I had been in this state for a long time, until the light gradually faded and the room plunged into darkness."
After that night, her health quickly recovered. Her strength and clarity of consciousness returned to her, but the way of her life completely changed. She used to love public entertainment; now she preferred home peace and communication with a few devoted friends. She discovered in herself the abilities of a healer: it was enough for her to touch her hand or look into her eyes, as those suffering from severe pain plunged into restful sleep.
When she first saw the light, she was twenty-four years old. And for the rest of her life, she had only twice had a chance to meet with this light. During one of these luminophanies, her husband was nearby and she asked him if he saw anything, but received a negative answer.
In her autobiographical notes sent to the doctor, she confessed that she was unable to express in words what was revealed to her “… during the experiment of luminophanies and immediately after it … This does not fit into words, maybe the word harmony is able to convey a part of what I understood then …
Comprehending what happened, when the light has already gone out, she adds, in essence, you always go through the same state: you experience an intense desire to reveal to people their true essence and help everyone who is looking for some kind of justification for what they call “this life "Looking for something worth living for."
The light does not frighten, there is nothing terrifying in it, and an almost human voice does not convey some transcendental revelations, but simply calls to remain calm. A quick, almost miraculous recovery becomes, as in many other cases, the beginning of a new life.
However, the fruits of this second birth are not reaped on a spiritual level, but are realized in a purely human activity: a young woman receives the abilities of a healer, the gift of saving people from insomnia, and the spiritual result of enlightenment is expressed in the fact that she has a desire to help people find certain values in life. …
W. L. Williamhurst's Luminophany Experience
Our contemporary W. L. Williamhurst wrote a book, Reflections, in which he talks about his own experience of luminophany. This happened in the village church during the liturgy. Here's what he writes.
“I glanced at the aisle next to my bench and saw some bluish smoke oozing from the cracks in the stone floor. Looking closely, I realized that it was not even smoke, but some more subtle and rarefied substance - a soft, intangible, luminous haze of violet light, unlike any physical evaporation.
Believing that this was just an optical effect or an optical illusion, I looked a little further, but I saw the same light haze … Then I realized an amazing thing: the haze extended beyond the building, as if the walls and ceiling were not an obstacle for it. Moreover, I could see through them the landscape stretching around.
I looked as if with my whole body, and not with my eyes alone. With all the intensity of this perception, I did not lose either physical contact with everything that surrounded me, nor the clarity of the flow of thoughts. I felt peace and joy - they cannot be expressed in words.
In the next instant, a luminous blue haze enveloped me - and everything around me was transformed into a radiance of glory, into an unspeakable light. Golden light - for the violet haze now seemed only to cover it with a veil, a kind of border - emanated from a huge sparkling ball in the center.
But the most amazing thing was that the corridors and waves of light radiating from the shining ball, and even the light sphere itself in the center were filled with Living beings … A single coherent organism filled the entire space, adding up from countless individual existences …
Moreover, a myriad of these creatures hovered in the air in the church; they were in constant motion, freely passing through people: our bodies were not at all an obstacle for them … These heavenly hosts passed through the parishioners, like the wind passes through the crowns of trees.
A similar, albeit shorter, experience is described by Allen Warner in Moments Out of Time (1946).
Everything that happened to the narrator was contained between two successive notes of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, while the consciousness did not fix the gap in the sound of the music. Here is Allen Warner's description.
“I closed my eyes and saw a silvery glow, which took shape in a circle, and its center stood out with its brightness. The circle turned into a tunnel of light, stretching out from some distant sun in the heart-fault of I. Immediately I felt myself being quickly and smoothly pulled into the tunnel.
And as I moved through it, the light changed from silver to gold. At the same time, there was a feeling that the tunnel was filled with a current of some force emanating from an endless ocean of power. On the other hand, I felt my soul fill with peace and tranquility.
The light grew brighter, but did not blind, and there was nothing threatening in it … I reached the point where time and movement died away … I was absorbed by the Light of the Universe, absorbed by the Reality, blazing like fire. Possessing knowledge of myself, while I have not ceased to be myself and by myself.
I was like a drop of mercury merging with the One, and at the same time I retained my separation from everything - so is every grain of sand in the desert. Peace and quiet beyond all understanding, and the pulsating energy of Creation was one in this center, where opposites are reconciled."
From the personal experience of the mathematician J. H. Whiteman
J. H. Whiteman, professor of mathematics at the University of Cape Town, has conducted a number of studies on ISS. At the age of 28, on a sleepless night, he felt that he had left his body and ascended upward.
“Everything happened instantly. My eyes were open. Above me, in front, around me shone the Glory of the Archetypal Light - it permeated me, and I myself was it. It is impossible to imagine a more true light, for this Light also gives every other light its essence; it was not the usual material light, but the creative Light of life itself, the source of which is Love and Reason, and all living things are created from its substance …
Somewhere far below, for a moment, something similar to the surface of the Earth flashed. At the same time, I did not have to lower my gaze or turn my head: I seemed to see everything at once. The vision of our planet appeared only for a moment - as if I was given to understand how far my spirit had detached from the Earth and approached the Sun.
How do you describe the source of this light? How to determine the direction in which he was? He was somewhere above, in front, but here we are not talking about the geometric direction, which is only relative, but about the absolute direction, his archetypal essence. The source of this Light was Life and Truth, the Source of all ideas about life and truth - and yet this source was manifested in space.
And then suddenly, without any change of direction, the Light found its meaning, purpose. That was the Idea of the Twelve; we are not talking about twelve, which lends itself to counting or counting, not about twelve, which is split into parts.
The idea of the Twelve is part of our concept of the number twelve; at the same time it is incomprehensible to us and belongs to the Divine.
Drawn by the Light … I reached the level of archetypes, and the name of God the Father was revealed to me. But then my understanding and obedience to the Higher Will began to dissipate, under the onslaught of selfhood, reason gradually began to lose clarity. For a moment the Idea of the Seven appeared before me, but that was already a much lower level of perception, and it is difficult to say with certainty whether it was an objective perception or a figment of my imagination. In the next moment, the consciousness of my body returned to me”.
From the book: "Secrets of the Human Psyche"