HYPNOTIC STATES, TRANCE, AND ECSTASY. 809 



flood of pleasure, but the sensory elements may be of any and 

 all kinds. 



One form is characterized by the appearance of a beautiful 

 light, far more pure and brilliant than any commonly experi- 

 enced. It is probable that this light is due to the hypertrophy of 

 the vague visual sensations which we always experience in dark- 

 ness what the Germans call the eye's Eigenlicht. Plotinus, the 

 Neo-Platonic philosopher (circa 204-269 A. D.), seems to have expe- 

 rienced this type of ecstasy, and has left us many descriptions of 

 it, and of his methods of attaining it, albeit couched in rather 

 obscure language. " Often/' he says (Ennead IV, book viii, chap. 

 1), " I awake from the body to myself, I come to be outside all else 

 but within myself, I see a great and wonderful beauty. Then am 

 I most assured of the supreme happiness of my lot, for I have 

 entered into the best life and am become one with God. . . . After 

 thus abiding in the Divine, I descend from intuition to thought, 

 and while descending I can not tell how I descend, or how my 

 soul has got within my body." He thus describes his method 

 (Ennead VI, book ix, chap. 7) : " In your contemplation cast 

 not your thought without, for God is not in any one place, de- 

 priving other things of himself, but is present there to him that 

 can touch him, and to him that can not he is not present. As 

 in other cases one can not think anything while thinking and 

 attending to something else, but must add nothing to that which 

 is thought, that it alone may be that which is thought ; so also 

 here one must know that he can not, while he has the image 

 of anything else in mind, apprehend God, that other image being 

 active the while, nor can the soul, while possessed and controlled 

 by other things, receive the image of their opposite. . . . Every 

 soul must let go all without and turn within, must not be at- 

 tracted toward any outer thing, but must lose consciousness of all 

 such, first of her condition and then of her thoughts, and after 

 losing consciousness of herself also must be given over to the vis- 

 ion of God." In another passage (Ennead V, book v, chap. 7) he 

 draws a distinction between light proper and that which is illu- 

 mined by it ; usually we see the latter only, but we can become 

 conscious of the former also. For example, with closed eyes and 

 in total darkness we see a pure light which is generated by the 

 eye itself. " So also the mind, wrapping itself about from other 

 things, and withdrawing within, seeing nothing, will behold light, 

 not here and there, but pure light alone, of itself suddenly shining, 

 so that " (chap. 8) " it can not tell whence it shone, whether from 

 without or from within, nor can one say, after it has departed, 

 that it was within or not within. One should not ask whence, for 

 there is no whence ; it does not come, nor does it go anywhither, 

 but shines, and then ceases to shine. One should not therefore 



