Revelation

Edited by Aaron M. Ullrey

In the modern context, the concept of revelation is used in three ways: to refer to an event in which new knowledge is disclosed, to the new knowledge that was disclosed by means of the event, and to a type of knowledge or a way of knowing. In the first use, it refers to a particular event or occurrence, mythic or historical, that some adherents explicitly or implicitly construe as disclosing knowledge from a supernatural source. In the second, it refers to the new knowledge that people claim was conveyed through a revelatory event. Within a religious tradition based on a revelatory event, people may refer to the new knowledge itself as “revelation.” Thus, God’s revelation to Moses on Sinai may refer to the contents of the oral and written Torah rather than to the event in which Moses went up the mountain and spoke with God. Christian revelation may refer to the content claim that Christ is the incarnate Word (logos) of God rather than to the event of Jesus’s miraculous conception. Similarly, the revelation of the Qur’an may refer to the content of the Qur’an rather than the event in which the angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad and commanded him to speak. The Sanskrit term shruti, often translated as revelation, literally means “that which was heard.” Thus, it specifically refers to the content of the Vedas rather than the event in which words were “heard” by ancient sages. In the third use, revelation refers to a general type of knowledge. Although the content of revelation differs from one revealed religion to another, traditions based on a revelatory event presuppose that revelation is a valid source of knowledge. Debates since the Enlightenment have given rise to an array of treatises defending revelation as a legitimate type of knowledge and way of knowing. Theologians and philosophers of religion continue to devote attention to revelation in the second and third sense articulated here.[1] This entry looks at revelation in the first sense, as an event or occurrence that some claim is revelatory.[2] 

To think about revelation as an event, we can begin with the Oxford English Dictionary definition of revelation as “the disclosure or communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency.” Recast in the active voice as “knowledge that an individual or group claims was disclosed or communicated to them by a divine or supernatural agency,” the definition has four distinct components: (1) an act of disclosure or communication that presumably occurs in a particular way, i.e., the means of disclosure; (2) the content that is disclosed however enigmatic or mysterious it may be; (3) the human or humans to whom knowledge is disclosed, i.e., the recipients; and (4) the divine, supernatural, or suprahuman agency that discloses or communicates the knowledge, i.e., the agentic source of revelation. The definition contains two claims: first, the commonplace and empirically verifiable claim that knowledge has been communicated or disclosed and, second, the controversial claim that the knowledge came from a divine, supernatural, or suprahuman source. The second claim sets revealed knowledge apart from other kinds of knowledge. Because the claim that new knowledge comes from a supernatural source is controversial and highly contested, the concept of revelation is inherently theological. What counts as revelation is specific to individuals, groups, or traditions and is contested by others, just as the nature of the supernatural is contested.     

“Revelatory events,” defined as disclosures from a superhuman source, are discussed in several disciplines and in overlapping scholarly lines of inquiry. In the comparative study of religion, the concept of revelation is typically associated with the founding events of so-called “revealed religions,” such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and, I would add, Mormonism.[3] Revelatory events that scholars characterize as mystical or esoteric are cultivated by subgroups within or on the margins of these established traditions. In many instances, revelatory events have led to movements labeled millennial, apocalyptic, or prophetic.[4] Scholars, especially anthropologists, refer to disclosures that take place on a regular basis, including disclosures mediated by objects, under the headings of “spirit possession” or “divination.”[5] The association of revelation with so-called “revealed religions,” despite the widespread claims of disclosure from superhuman sources in many contexts outside these religions, reflects the ways that revealed religions safeguard what they consider to be authentic revelation.  

This essay consists of three sections. The first surveys theologies of revelation to highlight the evaluative nature of claims about what has been or can be authentically disclosed. The second explores how different means of disclosure are experienced by those involved. The third examines the ways people and traditions identify, evaluate, and adjudicate the source or sources of disclosure.[6] A phenomenological approach to disclosure events reveals the instability of the concept of revelation and highlights the gap between the means of disclosure and the way disclosure events are conceptualized and adjudicated.  

This section considers claims regarding what has been and/or what can be authentically disclosed according to five “revealed religions” and then considers the claims of other groups and movements. The first subsection discusses three religions – Judaism, Christianity including Mormonism, and Islam – that trace their origins to the biblical Abraham. The second discusses Hinduism, which traces its origins to the revealed Vedas, as well as Buddhism, which does not trace its origin to a revelation from a supernatural source. The third subsection considers other groups and movements that claim they have received disclosures from supernatural sources.  

Judaism

The revelation of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai is the foundational event in the Jewish tradition. Torah is an expansive concept referring to the Tanakh, the first five books of the Jewish Bible, and to the entirety of Jewish scripture, including the oral Torah recorded in Mishnah and Talmud.[7] The Bible includes disclosures from supernatural sources that are not considered revelations, including the disclosures to prophets—those nabi, seers (ro'eh), and chozeh, sometimes referred to as oracles[8]—and disclosures via dreams and the casting of lots.[9] The rabbinic understanding of the transmission of oral Torah from Moses through the prophets to the rabbinic sages marks a transition from prophecy as a form of direct divine disclosure to prophecy as “a form of inspired interpretation” through the study of Torah.[10] Mystical approaches to Torah study later developed by the Kabbalists and the Hasidic movement discovered new levels of meaning in the revealed text that could connect the mystic or devotee to the divine but that did not claim to offer new revelation.[11] 

Christianity

Traditional Christians view Jesus as the Christ, the awaited Messiah, not simply a prophet. The tradition claims that Jesus, as the Christ, represents the fullness or culmination of revelation; in keeping with the Gospel of John, he is believed to be the Word of God (logos) made flesh, incarnate in human form.[12] The tradition links incarnation with conception. According to the Apostles Creed, “Jesus Christ . . . [was] conceived by the Holy Spirit [and] born of the Virgin Mary.”[13] When Mary asked how she as a virgin would conceive, an angel explained that “the Holy Spirit [would] come upon [her], and the power of the Most High [would] overshadow her” (NRSV, Luke 1:26-38), or, less euphemistically, she would be impregnated by the Most High through the mediation of the Holy Spirit.  

Although this foundational event is acknowledged by the tradition, Christians tend to understand revelation broadly.[14] For Catholic and Orthodox Christians, revelation includes the Old and New Testaments, as well as the apostolic traditions handed down by the Church. For Protestants, revelation ends in the apostolic era and is limited to the Bible.[15] The Catholic tradition makes a formal distinction between general or public revelation, intended for the whole Church, and special or private revelation, intended for individuals or groups within the Church. Catholic teaching subordinates special revelation to general or public revelation. Church authorities have recognized several appearances of the Virgin Mary as special revelations. They may help people live their faith more fully, but they are not added to the Church’s official teachings.[16] 

Mormon Christians consider Joseph Smith a prophet who added new revelation to the Christian canon. Smith’s first followers understood him as a prophet, seer, revelator, and “translator” of the Book of Mormon, albeit a translation made by supernatural rather than conventional means. The two largest denominations that recognize Smith as a founding figure—the Community of Christ (formerly Reorganized Latter-day Saints) and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—embrace continuing revelation and an open canon of scripture. At the time of Smith’s death in 1844, the Mormon scriptural canon included the Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, and a collection of revelations to Smith published initially as the Book of the Commandments (1833) and again two years later as the Doctrine and Covenants (1835).[17] 

Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon and his reception of individual revelations were disclosure events. Mormons believe that Smith recovered records inscribed by Nephites and other ancient inhabitants of the Americas on golden plates, which he translated between 1828 and 1829 “by the gift and power of God.” Scholars agree Smith dictated the translation to scribes while looking at a seer stone placed in a hat to block the light rather than by looking directly at the plates, which the Lord commanded him to keep concealed.[18] Smith began receiving revelations while he was dictating the Book of Mormon, and his revelations were recorded along with the time and place in which they were received. Shortly after the founding of the new church in 1830, some followers began claiming they too received revelations. In response, Smith received a revelation indicating that only he and his divinely appointed successors were authorized to receive new revelations and commandments for the Church. This did not eliminate the reception of new revelation by his followers, but it led to a distinction between personal revelation that is relevant to an individual and revelation that is relevant for the Church as a whole, similar to distinctions made by Catholicism.[19] 

Islam

The Islamic tradition holds that the revealed Qur’an is the Word of God, the literal Arabic words God “sent down” (tanzil) to the Prophet Muhammad between 610 and 632 CE. Muslims believe the Qur’an is the final and most perfect revelation (wahy) in a series of revelations delivered to prophets, including Moses and Jesus. Muslim and non-Muslim scholars consider the revelation to Muhammad to have taken place over twenty-two years in a series of historical events in which Muhammad recited the words to his followers.[20] Muslims distinguish between the revelation (wahy) sent down (tanzil) to Muhammad and divine inspiration (ilham). The final, authoritative, and binding revelation (wahy) conveyed to Muhammad provides the basis for evaluating claims of divine inspiration (ilham), because ilham, unlike wahy, may be erroneous. Sufi Muslims associate ilham particularly with individual saints, and Shiite Muslims believe the Twelve Imams receive a special form of ilham that is authoritative for their community.[21] In practice, as Amira Mittermaier indicates, “the lines between different forms of divine illumination [are precarious]. The fuzzier the lines are between revelation (wahy), divine inspiration [ilham], prophecy (nubuwwa), and dream-vision (ru’ya), the more dangerous crossing them becomes.”[22]  

In the Hindu traditions, the ancient body of Sanskrit literature known as the Vedas are viewed as revelation (shruti, literally, “that which was heard”). The term Veda, translated as “knowledge,” is that which was “heard” or received by ancient sages (rishi, meaning “seers”) and passed down through oral tradition. As shruti, the source of the Vedas is understood to be nonhuman (apaurusheya), meaning that the Vedas are eternal and authorless or that they are divinely authored. Orthodox Hindus view the Vedic canon as closed, expecting no new revelation. That which is disclosed to gurus, teachers, and other holy figures is referred to by Hindus as smriti, literally meaning “that which is remembered,” which includes inspired teachings, writings, and mythology transmitted through textual sources.[23] 

The goal of both Hinduism and Buddhism is liberation (moksha, nirvana) from the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). Hindus ground the prescribed means for attaining release in the revealed Vedas, whereas Buddhists ground the means of attaining it in counter-Vedic wisdom derived from the direct experiences of the Buddha. The foundational event for Buddhist traditions is the awakening (moksha) of Siddhartha Gautama, which disclosed new knowledge or insight about the causes and the cure for bondage to the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). Described variously across Buddhist traditions, the Buddha’s direct realization (bodhi) ultimately resulted in his own release, liberation, or awakening. All accounts attribute the Buddha’s awakening to his deep reflection on his past lives and the karmic “wheel of life” and not to a disclosure from a supernatural source. As a result, Buddhist traditions reject the authority of Vedic revelation.[24] 

When defined as disclosures from supernatural sources, we find that scholars often refer to revelatory events using terms such as gnosis, prophecy, spirit possession, and divination rather than revelation. Scholars study these types of disclosures, which the revealed religions tend to marginalize or view as inauthentic, in the context of mystical and esoteric traditions, millennial movements, and traditional and Indigenous cultures. 

Mysticism and Esotericism 

The definitions of the terms “mysticism” and “esotericism” that set the parameters for The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism overlap with the definition of revelatory events in this essay.[25] The Handbook’s editor, Glenn Magee, defines mysticism in terms of gnosis, which is a direct experience of ultimate reality, truth, or another transcendent source.[26] In any particular instance, a close reading of the historical evidence is necessary to determine whether those labeled as mystics claimed to have received information from a divine or superhuman agent rather than simply experiencing union with an ultimate source. Magee’s broad definition of esotericism includes the assertion of “knowledge claims regarding other aspects of reality or other sorts of beings that are accessible only by subjective means.”[27] So defined, esotericism includes knowledge disclosed by a divine or superhuman entity. By the seventeenth century, Christian theologians came to view esoteric claims as heretical because they “attempt[ed] to gain knowledge about divine realities by merely human means, independent of biblical revelation.”[28] Scholars can investigate the extent to which disclosures discussed under the headings of mysticism and esotericism are actually competing claims of revelation that more “orthodox” Christian traditions have deemed heretical.  

Several historical figures discussed in the Handbook claim that they received disclosures from superhuman sources.  Following a series of visions, dreams, and illuminations that he understood as encounters with the spiritual world, Emmanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth-century Swedish visionary,[29] had a vision of Christ that clarified his calling to serve as “an instrument to reveal the innermost mystery of the word of God.”[30] Swedenborg claimed to “hear the truths of the Word from the mouth of the Lord” and compared himself to the biblical prophets, ultimately understanding his disclosure of the “spiritual sense of the Word” to be the means through which Christ was returning to establish his new Church.[31] Rudolf Steiner, the nineteenth-century founder of Anthroposophy, claimed to disclose knowledge of true Christianity that he gleaned from the Akashic Records, clearly a supernatural source if not a supernatural agent located in the astral realm, a nonphysical plane of existence.[32] 

Other figures discussed in the Handbook disclose knowledge from sources that had little to do with Christianity. The Spiritualist movement, widespread in Europe and America during the latter half of the nineteenth century, was a popular source of new knowledge about the spirit world. Spiritualists typically met in small groups to conduct “seances” during which individuals known as “mediums” received disclosures from the spirit world, usually related to deceased relatives, and conveyed these disclosures to those gathered.[33] Helena Blavatsky, a co-founder of modern Theosophy, received letters from “Mahatmas,” allegedly living humans whom her followers regarded as a worldwide fraternity of spiritual adepts.[34] Aleister Crowley, associated with the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), dictated The Book of the Law that he claimed was disclosed by his Holy Guardian Angel, Aiwass.[35] The Handbook’s chapter on the New Age movement briefly discusses two of the most influential twentieth-century New Age figures, Jane Roberts, who channeled an entity named Seth, and Helen Schucman, who channeled (or as she said “scribed”) A Course in Miracles.[36]   

Millennial movements

Millennial movements typically rely on predictions by prophets, messiahs, and interpreters of scriptures regarding an imminent transition to a new order, whether desirable or catastrophic. An emphasis on an imminent transition to a new order can emerge within traditions or in zones of contact between peoples and traditions or in new religious or spiritual movements.[37] When native lands were occupied and native people forced onto reservations numerous prophets arose across the North American continent. Among the more famous were Wovoka, the Paiute prophet who led the Ghost Dance movement; Handsome Lake, the Iroquois prophet who established the Longhouse Religion; and Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee prophet who led a movement that resisted American expansion.[38] Millennial prophets were common elsewhere, including in Africa where they drew from traditional, Christian, and Islamic sources in response to colonialism. The Xhosa Cattle Killing movement was among the most dramatic of these movements. Inspired by a young female prophet who received messages from the ancestors, the Xhosa ritually killed hundreds of thousands of cattle to facilitate the ancestors’ return.[39]  

In recent years, alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have given rise to figures who claimed to receive disclosures from extraterrestrials who speak to global crises ranging from nuclear disaster to global warming. Based on the teachings of Claude Vorilhon, known as “Rael, Light of the Elohim,” the Raelian movement is one of the most prominent. Vorilhon was visited by one of the Elohim, extraterrestrial scientists who allegedly created all living things on Earth, and “Rael claims to have been taken in a flying saucer in 1975 to the Elohim home planet and to the smaller nearby Planet of the Eternals, where he met Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad, as well as Yahweh, who rules the Elohim home planet and presides over the Planet of the Eternals.”[40]  

Indigenous and traditional cultures 

Indigenous and traditional cultures are replete with experts whose local descriptors are translated as shaman, oracle, medium, sorcerer, and diviner. Scholarly definitions of these terms reveal considerable overlap. The Historical Dictionary of Shamanism does not offer a specific definition, recognizing the many and often contradictory definitions of shamanism. “Instead, [the Dictionary] presents information about all kinds of shamans and all kinds of claims about shamanism.”[41] The Dictionary’s entry on mediums indicates that “the most common reasons for making this distinction [between shamans and mediums] are that mediums appear more passive than shamans, may be controlled by the spirits rather than achieving mastery of the spirits, and [do] not journey to other worlds but instead expect to be visited by the spirits.” The entry stresses, however, that this distinction is not absolute, and “all putative altered states of consciousness … are culturally mediated and interpreted performances and may neither be completely distinguished nor held to be entirely passive.”[42]  

In the entry on “Divination” for the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Diana Espírito Santo offers an expansive definition of divination “as a means of arriving at answers to a personal or social quandary … [through] an ongoing dialogue with more-than-human agents.” So defined, she continues, “divination can be done with things, such as consecrated or significant objects, bones, shells, stones, tea leaves, or cards. … But it can also be carried out via bodies, cultivated through spirit mediumship and shamanism, in which there is a communicative prerogative to the possessed: messages come from the mouths of mediums but do not originate with them.”[43] This broad definition of divination would presumably include any person that conveys messages that do not originate with them, including prophets.  

Claims about the reception of authentic disclosures from supernatural sources are made by prophets, sages, gurus, mystics, occultists, shamans, mediums, channelers, and diviners. In fact, how the disclosures and those who receive them are characterized has less to do with the phenomenology of their experience or the means whereby they received the disclosure than with the way their claims to revelation are assessed by others, whether those others are in their own or in other competing traditions. As long as we bear in mind that brains—and thus minds—are part of the body, Espírito Santo’s distinction between disclosures mediated by objects and disclosures mediated by bodies proves useful in characterizing different means of disclosure in the next section.   

Building on Espírito Santo, we can distinguish between content communicated directly by the supernatural source to or through the body/mind of the recipient and the content that is received indirectly by the recipient based on their own or another’s interpretation of an external event, including patterns that appear in objects. The former are direct disclosures and the latter are indirect disclosures. Several caveats are in order before proceeding in our exploration of these means of disclosure.    

1. Those who are adept at receiving disclosures do not necessarily rely on a single method of disclosure. Methods may change as adepts develop their abilities or in response to different situations. In what follows, the focus will be on the primary method individuals use to obtain their most significant disclosures.[44] 

    

2. The kind of evidence available for discussing the means of disclosure varies. In some cases of direct disclosure, there is no historical evidence apart from the stories themselves, such as words heard by the Hindu rishis, the revelations to Moses on Sinai, and the annunciation to Mary. In other cases, there are first-person accounts from  recipients describing what they experienced or reports from both sympathetic and critical contemporaries. The reliability of these accounts and reports can be assessed using standard historical methods. In the case of direct disclosures, we may have the firsthand words of the entity making the disclosure through a recipient, and, if the words were recorded when they were dictated, these offer real-time evidence. The evidence of what was said, i.e., the recorded contents, should not be confused with the identity of the speaker, i.e., claims regarding who said the words. In some cases of indirect disclosure, such as divinatory practices based on the arrangement of objects, procedures for interpreting these arrangements are well established and the means of disclosure are straightforward. With other external events—signs, omens, coincidences—there may be little or no reliable historical evidence.  

    

3. In some cases, those who receive revelation have no memory of the event. In other cases, their memories are fleeting or dreamlike. Even when recipients have a vivid memory, they may have difficulty describing their mental state, and they may have difficulty determining if they saw something in an ordinary manner or if they saw it internally in their “mind’s eye.” It may be difficult for recipients to tell whether their mental state is altogether ordinary or if it is somewhat altered, especially if the disclosure takes place in the transition between sleep and waking. In some contexts, recipients’ mental states matter; in other contexts, it does not matter so much. 

    

4. Subjects’ accounts of their experience are culturally mediated; thus, the means of receiving disclosures as well as the contents disclosed are shaped by cultural expectations, especially when the means of disclosure is linked to criteria of authenticity. In some contexts, it is believed that authentic disclosures may come through dreams; in others, the recipient must be awake. In some contexts, the recipient is expected to remain present and to relay the disclosure from the supernatural source; in other contexts, the supernatural entity is expected to displace the recipient and disclose the content themselves. The extent to which recipients adjust their accounts to reflect cultural expectations is often hard to determine.[45]

When a disclosure is directly apprehended, recipients’ mental states may vary. Some researchers distinguish between those recipient hosts who remain aware while another agent speaks or acts through them and those recipients who are entirely displaced. Mental states, however, exist on a continuum that includes forms of co-consciousness and dream-like awareness that muddy clear distinctions between ordinary awareness and complete displacement. Researchers may be tempted to distinguish between direct disclosures based on whether the entity speaks directly in the first person or the recipient recounts their words in the third person. This distinction is not clear either, because recipients often relay the words of the entity as they received them in either the first or second person.  

We can make a more reliable distinction if we focus on who receives the direct disclosure – an individual or an audience. We can distinguish, in other words, between entities whose words are relayed by a recipient to listeners and entities who take over the body of a host to interact directly with an audience. We can refer to these as relayed disclosures and performed disclosures.  

When the words are relayed by a recipient to an audience, the recipient may be able to engage in an internal dialogue with the entity, but the audience beholding the recipient can only engage with the entity through the mediation of the host. If the recipient recounts the entity’s words to listeners, there is a gap, however small, between receiving and relaying the words. This is a relayed disclosure. When an entity makes use of a host to offer a real-time performance, then the audience receives the disclosure directly from the deity acting through the recipient. The entity may make use of a host’s entire body or just a portion, e.g., using their vocal cords to speak or using their hand to write. This is a performed disclosure. In performed disclosures, the audience may be able to question and interact with the entity, but the host cannot interact with the entity, because they have been displaced by the entity. Although the host may retain some passive awareness that the entity is communicating with others through them, they are not serving as an intermediary between the entity and the audience.  

Five examples will be discussed in detail below: three examples are recipients who relayed disclosures—Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Helen Schucman—and two examples are performed disclosures—the Dharma protector Pehar/Dorje Drakden, who acts through the body of Venerable Thupten Ngodup, the State Oracle of Tibet, and Seth, a self-described “energy personality essence,” who acted through the body of the New Age channeler Jane Roberts.  

When there is a gap, however small, between the disclosure and the relaying or recounting of the disclosure, the recipient has an experience of receiving the disclosure, and they can, at least in theory, describe that experience. Possible options for these experiences include:   

1. Perception-like sensations that seem to originate outside the recipients. Recipients may claim to see, hear, or be touched by the entity.  
2. Recipients may receive words or thoughts internally that do not seem to be their own, e.g., in the “mind” or “heart” or in dreams. 
3. They may receive thoughts or intuitions in the absence of words or images. Recipients may claim that they simply “knew” what was being communicated.[46]   

Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Helen Schucman relayed words that a community of followers came to accept as scripture, in the case of the Qur’an and the Book of Mormon, or that followers viewed as scripture-like, in the case of A Course in Miracles. Muhammad recited words to listeners who memorized or transcribed them.[47] Joseph Smith dictated words to scribes while looking at a seer stone. Helen Schucman first wrote down the words she received in shorthand, and then she read them to Bill Thetford who typed them out.

The evidence of what they experienced as they received these words is limited. Although Muhammad and Joseph Smith left little evidence in their own voices, there is considerable secondhand evidence preserved from those who knew these figures during the time they received the disclosures. Schucman, an academic psychologist, provides the most direct insight into the process. In an interview that she reluctantly consented to give, she did her best to describe what the reception was like. In addition, the disclosures themselves, the words attributed to the supernatural entity, sometimes offer evidence of what was occurring.  

Muhammad receiving the Qur’an 

The first five verses of Sura 96, in which Muhammad was commanded to “recite,” are generally understood as the first verses revealed. Other early Meccan suras and the hadith (the accounts attributed to Muhammad’s contemporaries) associated with Sura 96 suggest the following: Muhammad received the command to recite during a religious retreat (tahannuth), possibly while dreaming; he was initially uncertain about the source; and his wife Aisha, and other experts that she had him consult, confirmed that the ultimate source of the command was God.[48] The three hadith associated with Sura 96 all report that Muhammad feared he was possessed by jinn. Sura 68.2, in which the speaker assured Muhammad that he was not possessed, provides early evidence to support the evidence from the hadith. Muhammad’s reported uncertainty regarding the source of the words suggests that he initially heard words but did not see who spoke them. 

Other suras focus explicitly on refuting the competing views advanced by Muhammad’s critics about the source of the Qur’an, thereby reassuring Muhammad of his prophetic calling as a “warner,” another word for a prophet or divine messenger. Sura 26 states that no jinn or satan could have “brought down” (tanzil) the Qur’an (vv. 210-212), for they descend on “liars” (vv 221-223). In contrast, Muhammad was authentically receiving “a revelation of the Lord of the worlds, brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit [al-ruh al-amin], upon thine heart—that thou mayest be among the warners—in a clear, Arabic tongue.” 

Two points are worth elaborating. First, although the Meccan suras distinguish between trustworthy spirits, like angels, and untrustworthy entities, such as jinn and satans, Claude Gilliot indicates that it is not until later—in Medina, see Q 2:97—that “the agent of revelation is said (for the first and only time) to be the angel Gabriel.” Based on this passage and traditions attributed to Muhammad, Gilliot adds that “Muslim exegetes have identified . . . the ‘spirit’ in the earlier passages as Gabriel.”[49] This identification offers further support for the suggestion that Muhammad heard words but did not see who spoke them. Second, the statement that the revelation was brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit “upon thy heart” suggests that the words were received internally rather than externally. 

The commentary on Sura 42.51, a Meccan sura, describes three ways that God speaks to humans: “It is not for any human being that God should speak unto him, save by revelation, or from behind a veil, or that He should send a messenger in order to reveal what He will by His Leave.” According to The Study Qur’an’s commentary, revelation is “cast into the breast or heart of a prophet” directly by God in the first mode and through the intermediary of an angel in the third mode. In a second mode, which the commentary associates with the revelation to Moses on Sinai, “prophets hear the Speech of God directly [i.e., as an external voice] with no intermediary, but do not see God.”[50] Because Sura 42.51 associates hearing words externally only with Moses, it is more likely that Muhammad’s revelation was “cast into [his] breast or heart” and apprehended internally as words or thoughts that did not seem to be his own.   

Muhammad received some revelations in which the Lord spoke in the first person and other revelations in which the speaker referred to the Lord in the third person. Muhammad also relayed revelations that referred to him in the third person and relayed others that were addressed directly to him in the second person. In Sura 69, the speaker, addressing skeptics, sometimes refers to the Lord of the Worlds in the third person but then also uses the royal “we” and “us,” suggesting the speaker is the Lord of the Worlds. In Sura 26, the speaker, who again appears to be the Lord of the Worlds, refers to the Prophet in the second person: “your heart”— “so that you.” In this sura, the Lord was speaking directly to Muhammad not to an audience. Whatever the “voice” in which these revelations were expressed, they were first “cast into his breast or heart” and then relayed by Muhammad to his listeners.   

Joseph Smith “translating” the plates  

According to various accounts, the existence of ancient plates was revealed to Smith by a messenger, variously described as an angel of the Lord or a spirit or a personage. Mormons view the messenger as a long-deceased ancient American prophet, initially identified as Nephi and later Moroni, aka the angel Moroni.[51] The messenger who appeared to Smith in the night told him about the ancient plates and instructed him to recover them. After the messenger returned the next day and repeated his instructions, Smith located the plates but failed to recover them. After four years, Smith recovered (or materialized) the plates, which the Lord commanded him to keep concealed. Historians generally agree that Smith dictated most of the early revelations contained in the canonized Doctrine and Covenants and most if not all the Book of Mormon to a scribe while looking at a stone placed in a hat to block out the light. The concealed plates were usually nearby, but Smith did not look at them while dictating to his scribes.[52]

Smith claimed that he translated by the “gift and power of God.” His scribes reported that he sometimes spelled out unfamiliar words for them, leading some scholars to believe that Smith visualized English words that appeared on his seer stone.[53] Other evidence suggests that Smith received his revelations internally.[54]  In a revelation (D&C8) given to Joseph Smith and intended for his scribe, Oliver Cowdery, who also wanted the power to translate, the Lord described translation as a revelatory process in which he (the Lord) gave “knowledge concerning the engraveings [sic] of old Records,” i.e., the characters on the plates, saying “Behold I will tell you in your mind & in your heart by the Holy Ghost which Shall come upon you & which shall dwell in your heart now Behold this is the spirit of Revelation.”[55] Delivered to Smith while he and Cowdery translated the plates, this revelation seems to describe a general process through which the translation was revealed rather than one specific to Cowdery. Insofar as this is the case, it provides insights into what Smith experienced while dictating.[56] Although evidence indicates that Smith sometimes visualized words while looking at his seer stone, this revelation suggests it was mostly a process of “telling” in which the Holy Ghost put words in Smith’s mind and heart, much as the Trustworthy Spirit did with Muhammad.  

Helen Schucman “Scribing” A Course in Miracles[57] 

Helen Schucman, a psychologist at Columbia University, claimed that she “scribed” A Course in Miracles by writing down, in shorthand, words dictated by the “voice of Jesus.” She then read the words aloud to her colleague, psychologist William Thetford, who transcribed and typed them. Over seven years, beginning in October 1965 and ending in September 1972, Schucman scribed the three main texts of A Course in Miracles—a teaching text, a workbook for students, and a manual for teachers.[58]

Schucman did not feel the words she received were her own. They came quickly, and she could not anticipate them ahead of time. As she wrote in her autobiography, “I would feel it coming on almost daily, and sometimes more than once a day . . . I wrote in shorthand in a notebook that I soon began to carry around with me, just in case.” She continued, “I never knew when I started a sentence how it would end, and the ideas came so rapidly that I had trouble keeping up with them even in the system of shorthand symbols and abbreviations I had developed during many years of taking class notes and recording therapy sessions.”[59]

Schucman was reluctant to discuss the process of scribing, but she agreed to participate in a taped interview in 1976 on the condition it would not be published or circulated during her lifetime. The probing interview is revealing. Schucman said that, although she called the source of the words “a voice” in ordinary conversation, “it has nothing to do with [the physical process of] hearing.” Struggling to describe what it was like, she said, “maybe I’m using the wrong word when I say ‘hear.’” In response to the interviewer, she added “I think ‘knew’ may be a better word than ‘heard.’”[60] Like Smith, Schucman could pause the words’ flow and ask the source to clarify. As Schucman explained, “it [the flow of words] was very rapid, . . . if I didn’t catch a phrase, I could sort of say, ‘Would you mind doing that again? [Interviewer: This was in your mind?] This was strictly mental.”[61] 

Surviving evidence suggests that Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Helen Schucman experienced an internal flow of words that did not seem to be their own. Although the evidence is sketchy, all three recipients seem to have done more than simply relay the flow of words to others. To some degree, they appear to have been able to question or enter a dialogue, albeit an internal one, with the source.  

The manifestation of the state oracle or Dharma protector, Pehar/Dorje Drakden, through the body of the Tibetan monk Tupten Ngödrup and the manifestation of the spirit Seth through the body of the twentieth-century American channeler Jane Roberts are full-body performances. Full-body performances are common in many Indigenous traditions, including possession-based traditions in Africa and in the African diaspora. Just as the mental state of actors on stage and in film can vary when playing a character, so too we can assume that the mental state of those hosting deities and other entities can vary as well. The following two cases offer detailed descriptions of what the experience is or was like for these individuals to host a full-body performance.  

The Nechung Oracle 

Although spirit mediumship has been incorporated into Buddhist practice throughout South Asia and the Himalayas, it is particularly prominent in Tibet where protector deities (dharmapala), mostly with pre-Buddhist origins, have been integrated into Tibetan Buddhism along with institutionalized practices for consulting this class of deities.[62]  The most prominent of these protector deities is Pehar or his emanation Dorjé Drakden, also known as the Nechung oracle, the State Oracle of Tibet. From the seventeenth century to the present, this Oracle has been consulted by the Dalai Lamas on matters of state.[63]  

While in exile, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has maintained regular contact with the State Oracle of Tibet, Dorje Drakden. In his 2004 autobiography, Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama discusses his relationship with the Oracle and the ritual practices for consulting him. Today, Dorje Drakden manifests through Tupten Ngödrup, the current host for the deity. In an interview, Tupten Ngödrup described his experience as a physical vessel, a kutan, for the deity.  

The Dalai Lama recognizes that consulting an oracle may seem far-fetched to his non-Tibetan followers, but he explains that the Oracle gives him good advice and that he consults the Oracle before making decisions, just as he consults members of his cabinet.[64] The Dalai Lama interacts with Dorje Drakden in an elaborate ceremony. Once Dorje Drakden fully manifests through his kutan host, he stands before the Dalai Lama and then “either prostrates fully or bows deeply from the waist until his helmet touches the ground before springing back up, the weight of his regalia counting for nothing.”[65] Their relationship is one of commander to lieutenant, and the Dalai Lama, as the commander, explains, “I never bow down to him. It is for Nechung to bow to the Dalai Lama.” The Dalai Lama asks the Oracle questions and, after replying, the Oracle takes additional questions from members of the government in the audience.[66]

Although the Dalai Lama views their relationship as “that of commander to lieutenant,” he nonetheless considers them to be “very close, friends almost” (212-213). Dorje Drakden has a definite personality, which the Dalai Lama characterizes as “very reserved and austere.” At each of their encounters, it takes a while before Dorje Drakden opens up. Nor is the oracle interested in minor matters, “so it pays to frame questions accordingly”[67] (213). 

In 1987, three years after the previous kutan died, Thupten Ngödup was serving as a ritual attendant at a ceremony in which the Dharma protector was invoked, and the protector spontaneously entered Ngödrup, “like a flash of lightning.” Following an audience with the Dalai Lama in which he agreed to serve as the Oracle, and after completing a three-month retreat, Ngödrup became the official kutan. Ngödrup compares going into trance to embody the Oracle as like falling asleep. When the monks start invoking the deity during the ritual, he feels intense “fear and anxiety.” The people in front of him “get more and more distant” and sounds disappear. His breath and heart rate speed up and his body gradually goes numb. “Then, [he says], I feel something like a flash of lightning, a sudden flash of something red. After that, I lose consciousness. It is like falling asleep. . . . When I regain consciousness, it is a bit like waking up.” When asked if he had any awareness of the deity entering into him, Ngödrup indicated that “sometimes, it is like a dream . . . You recall that you did have a dream, but you don’t remember it.”[68] This suggests that when the Tibetan State Oracle displaces him, Ngödrup experiences a dream-like transition into a deep, sleep-like state. 

Jane Roberts and Seth 

Among the many twentieth-century channelers, Jane Roberts has left us by far the most detailed information. She and her husband, Robert (Robb) Butts, held twice-weekly private “Seth sessions” for twenty years, beginning with Seth’s appearance in 1963 and ending with Jane's death in 1984. During these sessions, Jane was in trance and Robert took notes that he later transcribed. During her lifetime, Jane published books in her own voice, such as The Seth Material, as well as channeled books authored by Seth, such as Seth Speaks. Although these books contain excerpts from their sessions, Robb published the more personal portions of their sessions after her death.  

In addition to the private sessions, Jane conducted weekly ESP classes from 1966 to 1975. The classes were initially devoted to discussing evidence for psychic phenomena, but they evolved into a typical 1970s consciousness-raising group of up to fifty people. The earliest ESP classes were transcribed and published as The Early Class Sessions; the later sessions were taped and preserved as The Audio Collection. Susan M. Watkins, a class participant, published Conversations with Seth, a two-volume account of the ESP classes based on transcripts and interviews with the participants.  

The private Seth sessions were largely monologues interspersed with questions from Robb. Occasionally, they turned into discussions. Although the ESP classes began three years after the start of the “Seth sessions” with Robb, Watkins explained that Jane didn’t “allow Seth to come through in class for a long time.”[69] Once Jane allowed Seth to “come through” directly, she shifted from relaying Seth’s words to hosting Seth. At that point, Seth began directly engaging the class as the co-leader of the group. As co-leader, Seth expressed himself in words and gestures, then retreated so Jane could take over.  

In the early seventies, Seth initiated the group’s transformation from an ESP discussion group into “a sensitivity group” focused on breaking down the internal psychological barriers within and between the participants. When he announced this to the class, he declared, “When I conduct a sensitivity session, you will know that you have been to one!” According to Watkins, “Jane came out of trance [at that point] to a class madly chattering away, ignoring her . . .  [She] hardly had a chance to hear . . . what had been said, however, before Seth was back, announcing that ‘You will shortly learn, here at least, to be honest with yourself’ . . .” Seth gave the class their first assignment—to tell the others a meaningful secret. He then withdrew, Jane reappeared, and the class told her the assignment that they all, including Jane, had been given. Seth made it clear to the group that Jane too had room to grow, and he began treating her as a member of the group.[70]

When channeling Seth, Jane was in what she referred to as a “Seth trance” in which she sometimes had a dream-like awareness of Seth speaking. After emerging from the trance, she typically could not remember what Seth had said, as is often the case with dreams. In a “Seth trance,” Jane wrote, “my focus personality goes out of focus on purpose, blurs through some kind of acceleration, and to varying extents takes on the characteristics of another aspect of the entity; draws them into range where they show themselves through their effect on the physical medium.”[71] Roberts elaborated: 

My trancetime is more concentrated than regular time. I’m not unconscious but conscious in a different way . . . In those trance hours I ‘turn into someone else.’ At least I am not myself to myself; I become Seth, or a part of what Seth is. I don’t feel ‘possessed’ or ‘invaded’ during sessions. I don’t feel that some superspirit has ‘taken over’ my body.  Instead it’s as if I’m practicing some precise psychological art, one that is ancient and poorly understood in our culture; or as if I’m learning a psychological science that helps me map the contours of consciousness itself . . . This is almost always an exhilarating experience, like riding some perfect gigantic ninth wave of energy, knowing exactly how and when to ‘jump in,’ and feeling absolutely safe and supported even when embarked upon such a strange psychological flight.[72] 

In the case of the Tibetan State Oracle and Seth, an otherwise discarnate entity manifests through the body of a host and, in one case, interacts with the Dalai Lama and government officials and, in the other case, with a class of students. Both performances draw on recognized cultural forms to structure the engagement, though the Dharma protector’s interactions are more highly ritualized than Seth’s were with the ESP class. In both cases, the channeled entity has a distinct personality and responds to questions, though Seth’s engagement in ESP class changed over time as the sessions transitioned from informal discussions to a sensitivity group. The State Oracle makes specific disclosures regarding matters of state to the Dalai Lama and state officials; Seth interacted spontaneously with class members to facilitate their personal growth. 

Without transcripts, it is unclear to what extent the Dharma protector engages in conversation with his interlocutors, but the Dalai Lama indicates that the oracle becomes more talkative as a session progresses. The private Seth sessions with Robb were not as interactive as the ESP class meetings, yet Seth and Robb sometimes had full-blown conversations and the ESP classes were highly interactive. After Seth transformed the class into a sensitivity group, he ran the sessions and periodically withdrew so Jane could participate.  

Thupten Ngödrup reports that he loses consciousness when the Dharma protector is fully present. Since this is what is expected for a performance, it is hard to evaluate if this is always the case. Jane Roberts had some level of awareness of Seth, but she typically retained little memory of what he said while she was in trance. In contrast to Ngödrup, who experienced fear and anxiety as well as involuntary movements and bodily sensations when the Dharma protector was manifesting, Roberts described the process as a learned practice, an art, that she tacitly compared to surfing, “riding a gigantic ninth wave of energy, knowing exactly how and when to ‘jump in.’”  

In contrast to the direct disclosures above, revelatory content may be disclosed indirectly through the interpretation of external events. In this case, the more-than-human entity does not reveal information directly but produces significant events in the world that humans must interpret to receive the revelation. These events may be patterns that emerge through the manipulation of objects or unusual occurrences (including coincidences) that people interpret as signs, omens, miracles, or messages.  

Ifa Divination  

Ifa divination, a central practice in the Yoruba religion of West Africa, meets all the criteria for revelation. Disclosure takes place when the diviner (babalawo) produces one of “sixteen basic and 256 derivative figures (odu) . . . either by the manipulation of sixteen palm nuts (ikin), or by the toss of a chain of eight half seed shells.”[73] These basic and derivative figures are the disclosure, but the content of the disclosure is only revealed when a babalawo interprets a figure by drawing from thousands of orally-transmitted verses grouped according to the figures with which they are associated. The babalawo recites a verse he selects from the group of memorized verses associated with the disclosed figure. His recitation conveys the meaning of the disclosure to the client. Believers claim that Ifá, the god of divination (note the accent mark in the name to distinguish god from system), is the source of the figure and the associated knowledge.[74] According to Yoruba teachings, Ifá, also known as Orunmila, was put in charge of divination because he was present when the High God Olodumare created the universe, and thereby Ifá knows all the universe’s hidden secrets.[75] As Russell Bascom indicates, “The verses are the key to the entire system of divination; and the selection of the correct verse, containing the message that Ifa wishes to have conveyed to the client, is the crucial point in the procedure.”[76]

Other Systems 

Other systems of divination—tarot cards, Nordic runes, the I Ching, and so on—meet the definition of revelation adopted in this entry when people claim that the source of the disclosure from these systems is a supernatural or suprahuman agent rather than a non-agentic principle, such as the cosmos, fate, chance, or tradition. Some practitioners consider events such as signs or coincidences, as disclosing knowledge from a supernatural source. Espírito Santo explains that,  

Links to the divine in divination vary. It can be buttressed by a cosmology of invisible entities, which an oracle mediates, such as with the orisha gods in the Yoruba cowry-shell divination (Bascom 1969). Yet it may also be experienced as a direct configuration of the cosmos as it is, such as with the Tarot, astrology, or numerology, which animate the cosmos with extra-human causal forces, but do not necessarily rely on the existence of a single god or deity.[77]  

Scholars must determine whether any divinatory system is thought to disclose information from a divine or superhuman agent rather than disclosing information from a non-agentic force. This determination is decided based on a close reading of historical evidence, keeping in mind that views about the superhuman nature of sources associated with any particular practice are not necessarily fixed.  

The claim that a supernatural or superhuman entity is the source of a disclosure is routinely contested. The alternatives proposed to discredit these claims differ based on the means of disclosure. When the disclosure is directly apprehended, whether relayed or performed, major competing explanations for the disclosure include self-generation by means of unusual abilities, fraud, mental illness, or the presence of an inappropriate entity, such as a demon or jinn.  

When the disclosure is directly apprehended, whether relayed or performed, major competing explanations for the disclosure include self-generation by means of unusual abilities, fraud, mental illness, or the presence of an inappropriate entity, such as a demon or jinn. In relayed disclosures, the claim that the disclosure comes from a superhuman source depends on the ability of the recipient—the purported prophet, shaman, or sage—to convince others that the relayed content is neither self-generated, as in the case of fiction or poetry, nor from a nefarious source, like a lesser or a rival entity. In the case of performed disclosures, the claim that a superhuman entity is present depends on the ability of the host and the entity to convince those present for the performance that the host is not simply acting or mentally ill. Typically, in performed revelations, the host must convincingly demonstrate they are not there during the disclosure—for example, by being insensitive to normal sensations or being unable to remember what the entity said or did. And the entity must also convincingly distinguish itself from the host by saying or doing things the host could or would not say or do. 

When the disclosure is indirectly apprehended based on the interpretation of an external event, the major competing explanations are chance, wishful thinking, superstition, and alternate practices such as witchcraft and sorcery.  Those present for the indirect disclosure and its interpretation are potential recipients of revelation. The means of disclosure is an objectively observable pattern of objects or events whose meaning and content is disclosed by an interpreter. The recipients’ confidence regarding the source of revelation depends on the skill or insight of the interpreter. Insofar as there are rules to be followed in interpreting the event, as in Ifa divination, claims regarding the actual source of the revelation depend on an interpreter’s ability to interpret them.[78] 

When revelatory disclosures take place within an established group or tradition, the established practices of the group or tradition play a critical role in determining the source and validity of the disclosure. These established practices provide leaders and participants with background knowledge, contextual understanding, and the authority to assess the disclosures. Within established groups and traditions, people hold shared beliefs regarding whether supernatural agents are expected to disclose new information, and, if they are expected to do so, people have shared expectations regarding who will disclose the information, as well as when and how they will do so. These expectations are theologies of disclosure. If disclosure claims fit a group’s expectations, then they are likely accepted by the group. Similar strategies shape expectations between and within traditions.  

Between Traditions 

Traditions often subordinate or invalidate other traditions’ claims in relation to their own claims. Christianity claims that its revelation supersedes Judaism, and Islam claims its revelation supersedes both Christianity and Judaism. All three, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam discredit later claims to revelation by claiming revelation was complete with Moses, Christ, or Muhammad, respectively. The Catholic Catechism explicitly states that “Christian faith cannot accept ‘revelations’ that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such ‘revelations.’”[79] Some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism incorporate Abrahamic holy figures as seers or avatars in Hinduism or bodhisattvas in Buddhism, embedding once-outsider figures into Hindu or Buddhist theological frameworks.[80] Some traditions use the distinction between supernaturally initiated disclosures and solicited disclosures to differentiate between those disclosures they accept and the unaccepted disclosures of others, especially diviners, oracles, magicians.[81]

Within “Revealed” Traditions

Traditions based on a founding revelation often make internal distinctions between types of revelatory disclosures and specify who is authorized or recognized to receive them. Hinduism distinguishes between shruti (that which is heard) and smriti (that which is remembered); Catholicism and Mormonism distinguish between general and personal revelation; Islam distinguishes between wahy (revelation) and ilham (inspiration). Distinctions between types of revelation protect the integrity of the founding revelation, but they do not provide grounds for assessing whether  arguably lesser claims of revelation are authentic.  

Expertise Within Traditions

Traditions that allow for ongoing revelation, whether or not they are based on a founding revelation, rely on systems of discernment mastered by experts—priests, bishops, rabbis, imams, gurus, and diviners—to assess ongoing claims. These systems typically have criteria to establish the authenticity of revelatory source claims. Experts may consider whether the disclosure occurs in an appropriate context, whether the content aligns with the teachings of the tradition, and whether the behavior of the recipient accords with the tradition’s expectations. It is often easier to evaluate the “fruits” of an event than to establish a disclosure event’s supernatural source. For many years, the Vatican expected Catholic bishops to evaluate whether alleged supernatural phenomena such as Marian apparitions came from a supernatural source. This resulted in so many indeterminate findings that the Vatican revised their norms. Vatican authorities now simply ask bishops to assess the “spiritual and pastoral fruits of the event.” If the bishops find nothing objectionable, then the contents revealed are considered legitimate expressions of faith.[82]  

When an established group disagrees regarding the source of a disclosure, those who believe it is authentic may split from the established group to form a group or movement centered on the new revelation and the one who disclosed it. Those convinced of the authenticity of the disclosure play a critical role in the emergence of new groups or movements. These “first followers” are like early adopters of a new product. If there are no early adopters, a new product will not gain market share and fade into obscurity. If a person claims to have received new revelation but cannot convince anyone of their claims, they may be silenced, expelled from the group, or sent to an expert for treatment, similarly fading into obscurity.   

In his “Theory of Revelations,” sociologist Rodney Stark pointed to the critical role of an “intense primary group,” often including  the claimant’s family members, in validating initial disclosures and encouraging them to continue. Building on Stark’s work, in Revelatory Events, I analyzed the initial uncertainty surrounding alleged communications from divine sources and explored the challenges a new group or movement must overcome to establish itself.[83] First, the disclosure and the claims made about it must prove convincing to those closest to the claimant, as well as any experts the primary group chooses to consult. Those close to the claimant know them well and typically share underlying beliefs and practices. Second, the primary group must be able to expand by enlisting followers who do not have a preexisting relationship with the claimant. Third, to go public with its claims (to market itself), the group must decide on a (brand) name, agree on what it is claiming (a product description), and, ultimately, position itself and its claims in relation to other religions, movements, and groups (devise a marketing strategy relative to other products on the market).[84] 

Due to supernatural source claims about disclosure, revelation is an inherently theological concept. Focusing on the events that give rise to such claims highlights the gap between the means of disclosure, i.e., the phenomenology of the experience, and the way that disclosure events are conceptualized by scholars, believers, and critics. Doing so makes it evident that scholars and traditions sometimes use similar terms to characterize phenomenologically distinct experiences; and, conversely, they sometimes use different terms to characterize phenomenologically similar experiences. We cannot assume that revelation is always disclosed to prophets in the same way, nor can we assume that prophets, shamans, channelers, and mediums all receive revelation in different ways. By identifying and distinguishing various means of disclosure, we can compare experiences of recipients from very different traditions, regardless of how the disclosures and those who disclose are characterized. Venturing beyond the so-called “revealed religions” to consider a wide range of claims about disclosures from a superhuman or suprahuman source allows us to consider the strategies that traditions use to assert claims of authenticity about disclosures and the strategies they use to undercut the claims of others. 

[1] See, e.g., Paul D. L. Avis, ed., Divine Revelation (W.B. Eerdmans, 1997); John Baillie, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (Columbia University Press, 1964); Grant Kaplan, Answering the Enlightenment: The Catholic Recovery of Historical Revelation (Crossroad Pub. Co, 2006). 

[2] The introduction is adapted from Ann Taves. Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths, First [edition]. Princeton University Press, 2016, 2–3. 

[3] See, e.g., Keith Ward, Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World’s Religions (Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1994). 

[4] Catherine Wessinger, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism (Oxford University Press, 2011); Glenn Alexander Magee, ed., The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism. (Cambridge University Press, 2016).  

[5] Diana Espírito Santo, “Divination,” Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ahead of print, April 5, 2019, s.v. Divination; Éva Pócs and András Zempléni, eds. Spirit Possession: Multidisciplinary Approaches to a Worldwide Phenomenon (Central European University Press, 2022). 

[6] Some conceptual aspects of the second and third sections are adapted from Ann Taves & Elliott Ihm (17 Mar 2026): A conceptual typology of presence experiences and corresponding mechanisms, Religion, Brain & Behavior, DOI: 10.1080/2153599X.2026.2618979

[7] Jacob Neusner, The Way of Torah (Dickenson Publishing Company, 1970), 35–38; Jacob Neusner et al., Revelation: The Torah and the Bible, Christianity and Judaism, the Formative Categories (Trinity Press International, 1995).  

[8] Martti Nissinen, Prophetic Intermediation in the Ancient Near East, ed. Carolyn J. Sharp, vol. 1 (Oxford University Press, 2016); Jack R. Lundbom, “Prophets in the Hebrew Bible,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, by Jack R. Lundbom (Oxford University Press, 2016).  

[9] Solomon Alexander Nigosian, Magic and Divination in the Old Testament (Sussex Academic Press, 2008). 

[10] Suzanne Last Stone, “The Transformation of Prophecy,” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 4, no. 2 (1992): 167–88. 

[11] Marvin A. Sweeney, Jewish Mysticism: From Ancient Times through Today (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020). 

[12] F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed (Oxford University Press, 1997), s.v. Christology. 

[13] The Apostles Creed - Interlinear Greek/English at https://elbourne.org/creed/. Accessed January 24, 2026. 

[14] The angel's announcement to Mary is referred to as the Annunciation, and it is commemorated on an annual feast day in liturgically oriented Christian traditions, see Cross and Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, s.v. Annunciation of the BVM. 

[15] Cross and Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, s.v. Revelation. 

[16] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Libreria Editrice Vaticana; [Distributed by] United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 23. 

[17] Blythe distinguishes between historical translations that were translated using ordinary methods and those that are revealed translations, including the Book of Mormon, that were translated by supernatural means (9). Christopher James Blythe, “Opening the Canon: A New Scriptural Tradition,” in Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition, ed. Christine Elyse Blythe et al. (University of Utah Press, 2022), 7–11. 

[18] “Joseph Smith as Revelator and Translator,” Revelations and Translation Series Introduction, JSP https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/revelations-and-translations-series-introduction. 

[19] Revelation, September 1830-B, JSP, D1:183–86 [D&C 28]; Terryl Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought (Oxford University Press, 2015), 80. 

[20] Brockopp, “Introduction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Muḥammad, ed. Jonathan E. Brockopp, Cambridge Companions to Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 5–7. Scholars question the extent to which these events can be reconstructed based on hadith, sura, and tafsir. Rather than interpret the Qur’an based on these later records, Donner argues that scholars should “attempt to infer from the qurìanic text what its true historical context might have been, and in this way check on the historicity of various reports in the sıra.” Fred M Donner, “The Historical Context,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Cambridge Companions to Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2006). 34. 

[21] Juan Campo, ed. Encyclopedia of Islam (New York: Facts On File, Incorporated, 2009), s.v. Revelation [Juan Campo]. 

[22] Amira Mittermaier, Dreams That Matter: Egyptian Landscape of the Imagination (University of California Press, 2011), 135-36. 

[23] Gavin D. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 11–12.  In practice, shruti becomes what is chanted in rituals. In that context, the distinction between shruti and smriti didn’t always hold up when non-Vedic words and mantras were added to rituals (personal communication from Aaron Michael Ullrey). 

[24] Richard H. Robinson et al., The Buddhist Religion: A Historical Introduction, 4th ed, Religious Life in History Series (Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1996), 10–29; John S. Strong, The Buddha: A Short Biography, Reprint (Oneworld, 2002), 73–76. 

[25] Glenn Alexander Magee, “Editor’s Introduction,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016).  

[26] bid, p. xvii. 

[27] Ibid, p. xxvi. 

[28] Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Gnosis,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016), 385. 

[29] Jane Williams-Hogan, “Swedenborg and Swedenborgianism,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016). 

[30] Ernst Benz, Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason, trans. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Swedenborg Studies (Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2011), 202. 

[31] Benz, Emanuel Swedenborg, 209–10. 

[32] Robert McDermott, “Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016). 

[33] Cathy Gutierrez, “Spiritualism,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016). 

[34] Michael Gomes, “H. P. Blavatsky and Theosophy,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016); K. Paul Johnson, The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge, SUNY Series in Western Esoteric Traditions (State University of New York Press, 1994), 8. 

[35] Egil Asprem, “The Golden Dawn and the O.T.O.,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016). 

[36] Olav Hammer, “The New Age,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge University Press, 2016) 

[37] Catherine Wessinger, “Millenialism in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” in The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, ed. Catherine Wessinger (Oxford University Press, 2011). 

[38] Michelene Pesantubbee, “Native American Geopolitical, Georestorative Movements,” in The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, ed. Catherine Wessinger (Oxford University Press, 2011); online edn, Oxford Academic, 5 Jan. 2012), accessed 24 Jan. 2026.  

[39] Rosalind Hackett, “Millennial and Apocalyptic Movements in Africa,” in The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, ed. Catherine Wessinger (Oxford University Press, 2011); online edn, Oxford Academic, 5 Jan. 2012, accessed 24 Jan. 2026.  

[40] Robert Pearson Flaherty, “UFOs, ETs, and the Millennial Imagination,” in The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, ed. Catherine Wessinger (Oxford University Press, 2011); online ed, Oxford Academic, 5 Jan. 2012, accessed 24 Jan. 2026.  

[41] Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis, Historical Dictionary of Shamanism, Second edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 2. 

[42] Harvey and Wallis, Historical Dictionary of Shamanism, s.v. mediums. 

[43] Diana Espírito Santo, “Divination,” Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2019. 

[44] This is a major source of conceptual instability, since scholars often refer to adepts—e.g. prophets, shamans, diviners—by the means they are presumed to use to receive disclosures. Nigosian illustrates the problem with respect to scholarly discussion of Hebrew nabi’s (typically translated as “prophet”) recognized use of divination: “Divination, of course, was a recognized method of securing oracular guidance in response to definite inquiries. But the activity of the nabi should not be regarded simply as that of a diviner; he could also be a seer, an observer, a dreamer, a cultic official, as well as one who often was seized, or possessed, by the spirit of the deity to deliver a divine oracle. Thus, the nabi was a multibehavioural character; his occult functions were considered important in all the phases of the sociopolitical and religious aspects of Israel’s society.” Solomon A. Nigosian, Magic and Divination in the Old Testament (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2008), 86–87). 

[45] Using objective measures (EEG) in ritual contexts, researchers have been able to distinguish those whose sense of self was displaced and those whose was not (Tsutomu Oohashi et al., “Electroencephalographic Measurement of Possession Trance in the Field.,” Clinical Neurophysiology 113, no. 3 (2002): 435–45). 

[46] These three means loosely reflect the traditional Catholic faculty-based distinction between exterior, imaginative, and intellectual revelations, i.e., locutions and visions. (A Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer: A Treatise on Mystical Theology, 6th ed. (Celtic Cross Books, 1950), 299–301).  

[47] Claude Gilliot, “Creation of a Fixed Text,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Cambridge Companions to Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2006). 

[48] Walid A. Saleh, “The Arabian Context of Muhammad’s Life,” in The Cambridge Companion to Muḥammad, ed. Jonathan E. Brockopp, Cambridge Companions to Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 27–34. 

[49] Gilliot, “Creation of a Fixed Text,” p. 42. 

[50] Ḥusain Naṣr et al., eds., The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, First edition (HarperOne, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2015), 1186–87. 

[51] Ann Taves, Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths, First [edition] (Princeton University Press, 2016), 52–54; Portions of this section are adapted from Revelatory Events and Ann Taves, “Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman, and the Experience of Producing a Spiritual Text: Comparing the Translating of the Book of Mormon and the Scribing of A Course in Miracles,” in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, ed. Brian M. Hauglid et al. (The University of Utah Press, 2020), 169–78.  

[52] For a review of the historical evidence regarding the translation process, see Michael H. MacKay & Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, From darkness unto light: Joseph Smith's translation and publication of the Book of Mormon (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 2015). 

[53] Christopher James Blythe, “‘By the Gift and Power of God’: Translation among the Gifts of the Spirit,” in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, ed. Brian M. Hauglid et al. (The University of Utah Press, 2020). 

[54] For a full discussion of the evidence, see Taves, “Producing a Spiritual Text,” 169–78; see also Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon (Religious Studies Center, 2015). 

[55] Revelation, April 1829–B [D&C 8], pp. 12-13, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed August 6, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-april-1829-b…;

[56] Taves, “Producing a Spiritual Text,” 176. 

[57] This section is adapted from Taves, “Producing a Spiritual Text,” 178–85. 

[58] Kenneth Wapnick, “The History of the Manuscripts of A Course in Miracles,” no date, 9 [accessible online at https://centerforacourseinmiracles.org/history] 

[59] Kenneth Wapnick, Absence from Felicity: The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course in Miracles, 2nd ed. (Foundation for “A Course in Miracles,” 1999), 182. 

[60] Helen Schucman, “A rare interview in which Dr. Helen Schucman describes the ‘Voice’ that dictated A Course in Miracles (includes the transcript),” (Foundation for Inner Peace, 1976, 2006, DVD), quoted in Taves, “Producing a Spiritual Text,” 182–83. 

[61] A rare interview,” quoted in Taves, “Producing a Spiritual Text,” 183. 

[62] Frederick M. Smith, The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2006), 302–11; Bénédicte Brac de La Perrière and Peter Anthony Jackson, Spirit Possession in Buddhist Southeast Asia: Worlds Ever More Enchanted, NIAS Studies in Asian Topics 74 (NIAS Press, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2022); René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons of Tibet: The Cult and Iconography of Tibetan Protective Deities (Book faith India, 1996). 

[63] Christopher Bell, “Nechung: A Tibetan Buddhist Oracle,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, by Christopher Bell (Oxford University Press, 2022).  

[64]Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama (HarperCollins, 2004), 212. 

[65] Ibid., 213. 

[66] Ibid., 212–14. 

[67] Ibid., 212–13. 

[68] Matt Linden, “Interview with the Nechung Oracle [Thupten Ngodup],” n.d., https://studybuddhism.com/en/essentials/interviews/interview-with-the-n…;

[69] Susan M. Watkins, Conversations with Seth (Prentice-Hall, 1980), 27. 

[70] Watkins, Conversations with Seth, 85–87. 

[71] Jane Roberts, Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology (Prentice-Hall, 1975), 100. 

[72] Jane Roberts, The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (Prentice-Hall, 1981), 4–5. 

[73] William Russell Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa (Indiana University Press, 2010), 3. 

[74] Bascom, Ifa Divination, 3. 

[75] Wándé Abímbọ́lá, ed., Ifá Divination Poetry, Traditional African Literature (NOK Publishers, 1977), 1; Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́, “‘Writing’ and ‘Reference’ in Ifá,” in Ifa Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance, ed. Jacob Kę́hiǹdé Olúpǫ̀nà and Rowland Abiodun, African Expressive Cultures (Indiana University Press, 2016), 71. 

[76] Bascom, Ifa Divination, 68. 

[77] Espírito Santo, “Divination.” 

[78] Inspiration for this paragraph came from Bascom, Ifa Divination, 11–12. 

[79] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 23. 

[80] Gregory A. Barker and Stephen E. Gregg, eds., Jesus beyond Christianity: The Classic Texts (Oxford University Press, 2010). 

[81] Schroeder argues that “the spontaneity of Israelite revelation is largely a mirage produced by ancient Hebrew scribes and reinforced by modern scholars intent on establishing the uniqueness and superiority of "biblical" religion” (Ryan D. Schroeder, Let Us Go to the Seer! Prophecy, Scribal Culture, and the Invention of Hebrew Scripture, 1st ed, Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Series, v. 563 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2025). 

[82] Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena,” Holy See Press Office, May 17, 2024, https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024…;

[83] Rodney Stark, “A Theory of Revelations,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38, no. 2 (1999): 287–308, https://doi.org/10.2307/1387795; Taves, Revelatory Events. 

[84] Taves, Revelatory Events, 225–29. 

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