Does the Holy Spirit Use Trance?
Takeaways from the Wiesinger Hypothesis
This article is a follow-up to my previous one, an introduction to Alois Wiesinger’s Occult Phenomena in the Light of Theology. The next article addresses whether Christians should develop psychic abilities.
As I mentioned in the previous post, I consider Wiesinger’s hypothesis to hold great explanatory power in the evaluation of paranormal phenomena. And despite the reluctance of parapsychologists to adopt “mystical” frameworks, I argue that this synthesis of theological categories with psi research is tremendously helpful.
Indeed, there has, from the very beginning, always existed a tacit religious dimension to parapsychology (or “psychical research,” as it was originally dubbed). F.W.H. Myers, a prominent founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), once remarked that one of the express intentions of his work was “to prove the preamble of all religions . . . that a spiritual world exists.”1 Similarly, the father of laboratory-based parapsychology himself, J.B. Rhine, wrote in a letter to Wiesinger that “The bearing of our work upon religion . . . is to me its primary significance” (p. 13). Readers will know that my own interest in the field comes from the implications it carries for my own faith tradition.
For better or for worse, realm of psychic and the realm of spirit are deeply intertwined, and “mystical” frameworks deserve the time of day. Some may not be fully testable (i.e., falsifiable), but they can be adopted as heuristic lenses to understand these phenomena. And if scientific findings correspond to our models’ expectations, we can infer (if not prove) their validity. This is the approach I take in A Magical World, where, in the context of ESP, I write:
The question that I am primarily interested in, however, is whether these abilities make the most sense in light of the biblical teaching of the soul. . . . As a component of the human being, the soul might be understood as our link to a spiritual realm, where information can be transmitted above and beyond any known sensory or physical mechanisms. If ESP is indeed “a human power,” it must be understood as a faculty of the human soul. In other words, the soul could be a conduit of the human person capable of sending and receiving information supernaturally, thus providing an explanatory paradigm for the phenomenon of ESP.2
At minimum, Christians who accept the categories of both general revelation (scientific research) as well as special revelation (Scripture and theology) should welcome models like Wiesinger’s in trying to make sense of psychic abilities. And it is to Christian readers that I now turn my attention.
Theological Questions
Before turning to some of the practical implications of Wiesinger’s works, we should examine whether his model can be justified in the context of biblical theology. Wiesinger contends that psychic abilities are “a vestigial remnant of the preternatural powers with which our first parents were endowed before the Fall” (p. 3). These “powers” were not wholly extinguished, however. As he states elsewhere: “We have called these powers remnants of the exceptional gifts of the first men, which though atrophied by the Fall, are still present in us” (p. 194).
In our pre-Fallen nature, there was no conflict between the limitations of the physical body and the powers of the spirit-soul (p. 78), yet now we see the soul’s powers manifest only rarely. And when they do manifest,
some kind of withdrawal of the senses can usually be observed, so that sense perceptions, and indeed the whole of our normal life, tend to recede . . . This very withdrawal, however, is the bridge which we must cross if the spirit-soul is to be activated. This means that if the soul is to act more or less as it acted in Adam, it must be released from the body, either completely as in death, or at least partially, as in that state of removal from sense life which we call sleep. Being aware of these facts many seek to produce an artificial state of sleep through hypnosis or trance, in order thus to attain new forms of knowledge or perform unusual feats. (p. 95)
Thus, Wiesinger proposes:
that man possessed a full capacity to exercise the powers of the soul prior to the Fall, and
that the “remnants” of these powers manifest when the connection with the bodily senses is diminished, as in states of trance or ecstasy.
Admittedly, the arguments used to substantiate his first proposal are less than persuasive. He cites the naming of the animals, for instance, to demonstrate that pre-Fallen man “possessed an angelic intelligence,” since, in the minds of the ancients, “to give a thing a name, one must know fundamentally its nature” (p. 81), implying an intuitive, spiritual access to knowledge above and beyond the normal mental faculties. He further points to the nature of pre-Fall labor as proof for man’s original “power of acting on matter and moving it without any kind of effort” (p. 85). This explains how pre-Fallen man could enjoy labor without fatigue prior to sin. In modern parapsychological terms, human beings had complete control of the material world through psychokinesis (PK).
While Wiesinger cites the philosophy and theology of a number of ancient writers to bolster this view, it cannot be said to be much more than speculation for those who limit their theology to the biblical text itself. That being said, the broader concept of a human nature fundamentally wounded by sin is easier to defend on biblical grounds. From this basic notion, one can make the necessary inferences to arrive at Wiesinger’s hypothesis, without resorting to tenuous proof-texting (Watchman Nee, as it happens, was guilty of the same error in his Latent Power of the Soul).
Wiesinger’s second point, that the remnants of these atrophied powers manifest themselves in states of trance, also has a biblical basis. Despite some minority voices who argue that authentic biblical prophecy was not performed in states of trance or ecstasy,3 and though historically the church has been suspicious of ecstatic prophets,4 it is now widely recognized that the Hebrew prophets of old engaged in such altered states as a normal part of their vocations.
Conservative Wesleyan scholar Ben Witherington III acknowledges that, “on a purely historical basis, one can not say it was only the prophets of Baal or non-Israelite prophets who experienced ecstasy or a trance state,”5 and that “It would appear that Israelite prophets experienced the same range of experiences found in prophets in other, nearby cultures.”6 His colleague Craig Keener likewise admits that, biblically speaking, prophecy sometimes comes through “ecstatic trances.”7 And David Aune, in his magisterial volume on Christian prophecy, notes that prophetic trance states go all the way back to the early days of the faith.8 Moreover, Merrill Greene’s forthcoming book—of which I was fortunate enough to read an early draft—demonstrates with overwhelming evidence that many biblical prophets and wonder-workers engaged in states of trance (both self-induced as well as spontaneously).
Thus, we have exegetical grounds for entertaining Wiesinger’s proposal that states of trance (which “loosen” the soul) may facilitate the manifestation of preternatural abilities—both within and without the confines of the Christian community. Augustine himself appears open to this notion, writing:
Some people indeed would have it that the human soul has a certain power of divination in itself; but if that is the case, why can it not always make use of it, since it would always like to? . . . Is it that something is done in the body to loosen the soul from it, so to say, and thus to let its attention scout around until it comes to where it can see in itself significant likenesses? . . .
Or finally, does it sometimes see these things in itself, sometimes through the interaction of another spirit? Whichever of these it is, there should be no hasty assertion of it (The Literal Meaning of Genesis 12:13[27]).
Augustine’s speculation about the potential “interaction of another spirit” is noteworthy, and we will return to this possibility later. For now, though, we can say that Wiesinger’s hypotheses are at least consistent with a sound biblical theology, even if they cannot be strictly proved from the text alone.
Questions of Praxis
The model proposed by Wiesinger—that psychic abilities are not necessarily demonic (or angelic), but represent diminished abilities of the (fallen) human soul—gives us tools to understand the how of the paranormal, but it does not immediately answer the practical questions: Should Christians “develop” these abilities? Are there dangers in doing so? Is there a “licit” way that God can use these abilities?
On one side of the spectrum, some observers see little to no potential for redeeming the realm of psychic powers. The prolific Lutheran writer Kurt Koch once wrote that “the worst misfortune that can befall a Christian is the sudden acquisition of psychic gifts,”9 and he recommended that believers “should pray for deliverance from this ability . . . from the occult realm,”10 an ability which he expressly notes “is not a gift from God.”11 The Chinese church leader Watchman Nee manifested a similar attitude, writing, “As Christians we must be very careful . . . not to stir up soul’s latent energy either purposely or unwittingly.”12 (Curiously, Nee’s theory for psychic gifts as a power of the soul now diminished by the Fall is nearly identical to Wiesinger’s).13
On the other side of the spectrum, the Anglican Deliverance handbook promotes a more positive approach:
[Psychic abilities] “are all part of the realm of nature and created by God. Like all created powers, the psychic needs to be ‘hallowed and directed aright’, but in itself it is morally neutral. . . . The realm of the psychic in itself is neither holy nor demonic.”14
So which is it? Are these abilities to be considered a curse or a blessing? A spiritual talent or a spiritual pathology? Should we eschew any form of trance states—states which seem to be conducive to paranormal phenomena?
Our previous mention of the biblical data should give us pause before dismissing the legitimacy of a positive function for preternatural gifts which manifest in states of trance. Furthermore, one can observe the use of altered states of consciousness in mainstream Charismatic healing ministries.
Charismatic Trance States
To take an example, my wife and I recently attended a conference in Pennsylvania organized by Randy Clark, famous for his role in the outbreak of the Toronto Blessing. Several of the sessions focused on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit through prophecy, healing, and impartation, sometimes accompanied by the involuntary shaking and falling known to the broader Pentecostal world (and often derided outside that world). In general, speaking sessions were preceded by lengthy music sessions with repetitive choruses. This allowed for a certain esprit de’corps and rapport to develop among the thousands of attendees in the auditorium. Such a “collective effervescence” (as Émile Durkheim called it) constitutes an altered state of consciousness, one that is, in Wiesinger’s terminology, conducive to the “loosening” of the soul.
Although these sorts of conferences can attract attention-seekers who fake manifestations, I can attest to some preternatural phenomena of clairvoyant knowledge being manifested from the pulpit and from an attendee, in addition to a substantial healing accompanied by involuntary shaking. Clark himself, in his session focused on healing, heavily and repeatedly emphasized the importance of creating “an atmosphere of expectation.” He showed us three video clips of dramatic healings from his ministry in Brazil, telling us to watch them with an expectation for similar healings in our midst. Invariably, he said, genuine healings follow the watching of these video clips. The one exception to this rule, he continued, was when he forgot to tell the audience to expect healing!
What some would call psychological priming, Clark would call “faith building.” At any rate, his facilitation of an expectation for healing led to dozens of reported healings—one of which I can attest to personally. While some might miss it, these healings were associated with trance—ranging from mild states of absorption to intense involuntary shaking.
One of Clark’s predecessors in the Charismatic renewal, the late John Wimber, also offers witness to healings connected with states of trance. In his own conferences, he often insisted on a “no hype” approach—following his passionate teaching sessions with a relaxed coffee break, not wanting false healing or prophecy to result simply from mere excitement. That being said, any viewer of his conference videos will notice levels of trance in the healing subjects who come to the stage for demonstration—again ranging from mild dissociation to extreme involuntary movements.
One of Wimber’s own predecessors, Kathryn Kuhlman, would begin her healing meetings with faith-building music. She would then speak to the audience “until she began to feel the ‘anointing’ of the Spirit guiding her to call out healings already occurring in the room.”15 Her popular meetings did not feature immediate healings, but rather a gradual “build-up” of an atmosphere conducive to healings. In the cases of both Wimber and Kuhlman, some of the healings from their ministries have been documented as genuine and more than could be expected from psychological priming alone.16
For these ministers, it seems, God worked within the framework of states of trance. Could this validate part of the Wiesinger hypothesis? Perhaps these states of trance (a “loosening” of the soul) in an environment of faith was the means by which the Holy Spirit brought healing and prophetic insight to these individuals.
This leads us to another of Wiesinger’s contentions. . .
Grace Perfects Nature
Wiesinger’s conclusion is that these abilities are not evil, but a weakened part of our nature which is meant to be restored by grace. He writes that the “natural mysticisms” common to all times and cultures
derive from an irrepressible longing, from a natural and passionate desire for those preternatural gifts which became useless by sin. These gifts were not intended as something contrary to nature, but as a support and perfection thereof. (p. 264)
Yet it is only through the Christian means of grace that these preternatural gifts can and should attain their true fulfillment.
Today, after the Fall, man can only quench this most understandable desire for them by winning back, by the power of grace in true mysticism, something of that which has been lost. (p. 264)
Thus, Wiesinger echoes the longstanding Christian tradition that “grace supposes nature” (gratia supponit naturam), and that “grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it” (gratia non tollit naturam sed perficit).
God, who sometimes joins his graces to the gifts of nature (gratia supponit naturam), sometimes makes use of this state of the soul in order to dispense his gifts of grace. (p. 112)
Thus, it might be entertained that the Charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit may operate through the soul’s “natural” faculties, empowered and elevated by God’s grace. The Anglican Deliverance handbook—after warning about the use of these abilities in magic and spiritualism—proposes much the same idea, noting that “the psyche is a part of nature, and that grace does not destroy but perfects nature by placing it in its true, that is God-centred, context.”17
Jimmy Akin himself suggested this outlook when dealing with Padre Pio’s bilocation miracles (which, it should be mentioned, occurred while his “primary body” was in a state of trance) and their relationship to similar phenomena outside of Christendom:
If God built paranormal abilities into human nature—like remote viewing or out-of-body experiences that can produce bilocation—then there’s no reason He can't supernaturally elevate those abilities and use them for his purposes. . . . this is a “both-and” situation rather than an “either-or” situation. God may have built some kind of weak ability into human nature. And He may then elevate and perfect it by His grace to do good in the world, as in the case of some saints.
Wiesinger’s proposal that psychic abilities are atrophied powers of the soul to be recovered by grace is particularly attractive. It provides a framework for understanding both spontaneous paranormal experiences and Charismatic giftings. But what does it have to say about the development of the soul’s powers outside of the protection of God’s grace? What are some of the darker dimensions to opening “the doors of perception”?
Since the present essay is running long, these questions will be addressed in the third and (final) article on the Wiesinger Hypothesis.
As quoted in Edward F. Kelly and Michael Grosso, “Mystical Experience., in Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, edited by Edward F. Kelly et al. (Lanham; Boulder; New York; Toronto; Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 560.
Matthew McGuire, A Magical World: How the Bible Makes Sense of the Supernatural (Independent, 2024), 105-106.
Wayne Grudem, for instance, states: “The involuntary ‘prophesying’ and physical restraint that affected Saul and his messengers (I Sam. 19:20-24) stands as a unique incident in Scripture, and should not be generalized into a claim that there were ‘ecstatic’ bands of prophets throughout the land.” The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today, revised edition, (Eastbourne: Kingsway, 2001), 275.
Simon Tugwell writes: “One of the criteria the early church evolved, in fact, for judging true prophecy, was that the prophet should retain his normal consciousness throughout.” Did You Receive the Spirit? (New York; Paramus; Toronto: Paulist, 1972), 67. In support of this statement, Tugwell cites Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16-17 and Origen, Against Celsus 7.3.
Ben Witherington, III, Jesus the Seer: The Progress of Prophecy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), Kindle Location 397. See also David Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 86–87.
Importantly, he further notes that these Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs) “can vary from heavy to light, involving more or less loss of contact with the outer world.” Jesus the Seer, Kindle Location 397.
Craig S. Keener, Gift and Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 120.
David Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 313.
As quoted in Michael Perry, ed., Deliverance: Psychic Disturbances and Occult Involvement, SPCK Classics, 2nd edition (London: SPCK, 1996), 55.
Kurt Koch, Christian Counseling and Occultism: A Complete Guidebook to Occult Oppression and Deliverance, 21st edition (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1972), 187.
Kurt Koch, Occult ABC: Exposing Occult Practices and Ideologies, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1986). 38.
Watchman Nee, The Latent Power of the Soul (New York: Christian Fellowship, 1972), 25.
“We who have been taught of God know that this ability is the latent power of man’s soul which is now bound in the flesh through Adam’s fall. This power had fallen with man, so that according to God’s will it should not be used any further. But it is Satan’s desire to develop this latent ability so as to make man feel he is as rich as God in accordance with what Satan had promised. Thus will man worship himself, though indirectly it is a worship of Satan.” Watchman Nee, The Latent Power of the Soul, 21.
Perry, Deliverance, 50, 55. This volume, while it may not hold official status in the Church of England, has been the primary “go-to” resource for training Anglican deliverance ministers for decades. The editor, the late Michael Perry, was the archdeacon of Durham and erstwhile editor of The Christian Parapsychologist.
Amy Collier Artman, The Miracle Lady: Kathryn Kuhlman and the Transformation of Charismatic Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019), Kindle Location 1149.
For Wimber, see David C. Lewis, Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact?: A Comprehensive Analysis of Healings and Associated Phenomena at John Wimber’s Harrogate Conference (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989). For Kuhlman, see Emily Williams Kelly, “Psychophysiological Influence,” in Irreducible Mind, 135.
Perry, Deliverance, 53. See also Tugwell, Did You Receive the Spirit?, 104.
Very interesting topic. You obviously spend a lot of time preparing these articles. Thank you for that.