It pervades the entire universe but nothing pervades it. It is effulgent by nature, and its splendor illumines everything...
Category: First Visions
St. Augustine's "First Vision" Account
And being admonished by these books to return into myself, I entered into my inward soul, guided by thee... And I entered, and with the eye of my soul—such as it was—saw above the same eye of my soul and above my mind the Immutable Light.
Incorporeal Radiance "First Vision" Account
For it is a property of the Good that it becomes known to him who is able to see it... It shines forth much or little, according as he who gazes on it is able to receive the inflow of the incorporeal radiance... It is full of immortal life.
Eternal Fire "First Vision" Account
But it is only when all outward appearances are gone that there is left that one principle of life which exists independently of all external phenomena. It is the fire that burns in the eternal light, when the fuel is expended and the flame is extinguished; for that fire is neither in the flame nor in the fuel, nor yet inside either of the two, but above, beneath, and everywhere.
Oceanic Light "First Vision" Account
Meditation begins as most do. I feel as if I am a small stone sinking into an ocean of filtered light. The light seems to be coming from all directions. I slow, almost pause, at certain levels before my specific gravity increases again, and I sink deeper into this ocean of consciousness—no real experience of having entered this ocean—just being there and going deeper and deeper. It is beyond peaceful, beyond serene.
Can We Have A "First Vision” Experience?
Many in the LDS Church may believe it was unique to Joseph Smith, but is it?
Eugène Ionesco's "First Vision" Account
I suddenly entered the heart of a reality so blindingly obvious, so total, so enlightening, so luminous, that I wondered how I had never before realized how easy this reality was to find and how easily I found myself in it.
Norris Stearns "First Vision" Account
This is an account written by Norris Stearns of Greenfield, Massachusetts, published in 1815, five years before Joseph Smith's First Vision experience, in a pamphlet titled The Religious Experience Of Norris Stearns Written by Divine Command. The 35 page pamphlet can be read in its entirety online at this link. Here is an excerpt of part of his vision.
Golden Light "First Vision" Account
"Sometimes during meditation golden light pours into my head, as if squeezed through a cloth, filling my head with light. At times, I feel like a newborn baby entering a new dimension of reality made of infinite tenderness, purity, love, and divine wholeness, a heavenly domain."
Hellen Keller’s “First Vision” Account
"As I wander through the dark, encountering difficulties, I am aware of encouraging voices that murmur from the spirit realm. I sense a holy passion pouring down from the springs of Infinity... Bound to suns and planets by invisible cords, I feel the flame of eternity in my soul. Here, in the midst of the every-day air, I sense the rush of ethereal rains. I am conscious of the splendor that binds all things of earth to all things of heaven—immured by silence and darkness, I possess the light which shall give me vision a thousand-fold when death sets me free."