or hearing, combined with
the mnemonic effort already explained, is modified to correspond with
these vivid and exalted images; thus constituting the wonderful
phenomenon of ecstasy. In such a case the ecstatic phenomenon in persons
subject to these nervous affections is often invested with fresh wonders
by the additional sensations of light and subjective colours; this is
not uncommon even in persons of a sane mind and body, but undoubtedly it
is more frequently the case in those whose mental and physical
conditions are abnormal. It is not rare to hear an ecstatic person
recount divine visions, suffused with extraordinary light and glory.

In order to contribute to the researches of others into the nature of
this phenomenon, I must be permitted--not from vanity, but from a
desire that my own imperfections may serve the cause of science however
slightly--to relate some facts, personal to myself, which bear upon the
question, facts of very general experience. From my childhood I have
had, both by day and night, various subjective sensations of light which
I was, as a person of perfectly sane mind, able to observe
dispassionately. After reading for a long while, or when fatigued by
sleeplessness, mental excitement, or some temporary gastric derangement,
I see clear flames circling before my eyes. These are in a small, oblong
form, arranged at brief intervals in concentric curves, and composing a
moving garland projected upon space, tinged with a yellowish light,
shading into vivid blue. Sometimes this figure is changed for stars,
twinkling in a vast and remote space, as in a firmament. In addition to
this phenomenon, I have about twenty times in the course of my life
experienced other subjective and more extraordinary sensations of light,
not unknown to others. This phenomenon occurs when I am in a normal
condition of health, and always begins with a confusion of sight, so
that I am unable to see objects and the faces of people distinctly;
after which everything within the range of vision becomes mobile and
tremulous. This state continues for ten minutes, and then clear and
distinct vision returns. Next a lucid circle, zig-zagged in acute
angles, appears close to the eyes, now on the right, now on the left.
It moves in a somewhat serpentine course, and is broken in the centre of
the lower half. It withdraws from the eye into subjective space, and the
shining band of which it is composed gradually loses its sharp angles,
a