The Spirit-Inspired Imagination in Church Tradition

Following the biblical pattern, the church has always assumed that God can communicate spiritual truths to people through their imaginations, especially through dreams and visions. Church history is replete with accounts of revelations people received by these imaginative means. St. Augustine, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, along with others too numerous to mention have handed down to us their accounts of visions they had of the Lord in their mind’s eye that powerfully affected their lives.