Hildegard’s Visions, and Mine

Hi Jenny, My deepest sympathies go out to you. I also have a question: did you have the implant removed. If so, could it's removal possibly remove the trigger source of all these problems? I hope this is not too simplistic a question...but it is where my brain first went. Kindest regards, Claire

Over a century ago, William James referred to this kind of profoundly confused conflation of correlation and causation as “medical materialism.” Over 15 years ago, nobel laureate Steven Weinberg came very close to admitting that science explains nothing, it merely describes - then weaseled his way out of it by simply changing the definition of “explanation” that has been the foundation of intellectual inquiry for over 2000 years. In the past 3 years, the American Psychological Association (scientifically one of the most conservative, and in regard to anything non-materialistic, pig-headed, obstinate, intransigent scientific organizations on the planet) published a book and a special journal which both took for granted the scientific validity of a wide range of so-called “para”-normal phenomena (perfectly normal the world over for thousands of years, right up to the present day, at in many cases more easily replicable than many if not most “normal” psychologial experiments. The book, “Transcendent Mind,” also took for granted the legitimacy of understanding Consciousness (Chit Shakit, in case you think you undersatnd what the word “consciousenss” means) as the foundation of the universe. The earthquake which is beginning to be felt throughout the world of science is the far deeper explanation for the political upheavals in the world. Watch out for it - what your’e seeing now is nothing compared to what will emerge in the coming decades. Www.remember-to-breathe.org

how incredibly arrogant to compare oneself to Hildegard Van Bingen, a brilliant composer!

Its tragic that no one has diagnosed the source or name of your severe illness. I wish a case like yours was discussed in the 'Diagnosis' section by Dr. Lisa Sanders in the New York Times, so the world could take shot at identifying what is wrong with you.

I have migraines. What Hildegard described was migraines, plus a political twist. She claimed that God had directed her to create and direct monasteries at a time that would have been forbidden to women. When challenged on this point she responded, basically, with "I know! A woman! Weird, eh?, but that's what GOD said". Eventually she got what she demanded, because... God!

Jenny: What if you were a man? What if the welfare state wasn't paying you to be disabled, and you were your wife and child's sole means of support, and no one felt sorry for you?

Foolish me. I thought the subject of this article was going to be Hildegard von Bingen.

To reject and ignore Hildegard's faith in God and her insight into the connection she made with the divine through her compositions is to be contemptuous of her art and her life. What sort of superiority and narcissism would drive anyone to presume to do such a thing?

Ms. Giering, thank you for sharing your story regarding your intense experiences with illness and hallucinations. Perhaps the following resources might be helpful. - Article - "A Conversation with Dr. John Weir Perry" - - global-vision.org/papers Jungian treatment for people experiencing initial episodes of schizophrenia - Includes dramatic illustrations - Article - brainpickings.org - "How To Change Your Mind: Michael Pollan On How the Science of Psychedelics Illuminates Consciousness, Mortality, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence" - Book - "Kundalini - The Evolutionary Energy in Man" by Gopi Khrishna - (1997 edition - See Amazon - 1st pages) - Book - "Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm" - by Stephen Harrod Buhner (See Amazon - 1st pages) - A description of the author's sudden numinous boyhood experience - Also see website - buhnerhealinglyme.com - Scholarly article - (fee for copy) "The Two-Part Film Technique - Empowering Dissociative Clients To Alter Cognitive Distortions and Maladaptive Behaviors" - By Sarah Y. Krakauer Describes how to communicate with one's own - "Collective Heart", Higher Self, Inner Wisdom, Inner Observer, Inner Self Helper - for healing - While the client is in a trance-like state, the therapist gives instruction to create an imaginary inner film screen - then invite one's Inner Self Helper to use this screen to intuitive communicate ways to understand and improve troubling patterns of perception and behavior.

Please keep writing to us about your struggle.GOOD LUCK..

Before menopause I had horrific migraines. At some point I discovered that eating sulfites such as those in dried fruit and red wine were related to the migraines.

I made a comment a few years ago at a scholarly paper on Hildegard of Bingen that her drawings looked very similar to my migraine auras and that they were so distinctive as to make clear what she had. For me they were generally the prelude to a horrible protracted headache. One small correction—her pieces weren’t madrigals. There is a late Medieval type of polyphonic genre in Italy called a madrigal, and then the type of pieces we usually think of as madrigals developed in the 16th century. Hildegard wrote monophonic music. If we could go back in time we could ask her if sleep deprivation made them more frequent.

Declared disabled? After reading this I’m wondering whether the writer has made a lifestyle of being ill. I’ve experienced these hallucination symptoms with my complicated migraine. (I, too, once had my vision go out while I was driving. I pulled over and stopped until it returned and I was safe to drive. If I’d had a child in the car I would have called a taxi or a friend to get to my destination. It’s inexcusable that the writer continued driving in her impaired condition, with her child in the car.) I have lost weeks, months and years of my life to migraine. The pain is beyond description. Yet I have never received the complex medical care the writer seems to have at her disposal. I’ve never gone to the ER for migraine, even when I was screaming from pain and projectile vomiting. I’ve never had a prolonged stay in a neuro unit. I’ve had a few MRI sessions (brain damage from an old, undiagnosed stroke was found), but otherwise I have always been rushed through medical appointments and escorted out the door with either a new script to try, or a renewal of the one I’ve had for about 15 years. And the same diagnosis: migraine. I power through it because I know it’s migraine and there isn’t much the doctors can do about it. You can demand more and more diagnostic work for migraine, or rush to the ER every time you have a bad one, but in the end you are just abusing your medical coverage. Because you will still have the condition, and the diagnosis won’t change.

This is a great piece and Ms. Giering's music is beautiful. One hopes she can continue to compose, or perhaps use her hallucinations to compose something new and daring, at least for her. Much like the drug induced hallucination that resulted in Coleridge's Kubla Khan. I might note also that science is providing more explanations for what seem to be "visions" experienced by people under unusual circumstances. My apologies to the religiously faithful, and I don't mean to suggest that one should cease to believe whatever you like. But we are coming to know now that certain conditions can affect what happens in the brain, triggering neurological responses and thus what one seems to experience. A recent study showed that increased CO2 in the blood could stimulate brain visions akin to those described by people as seeing the end of life or "the other side" as it were. The bright light and perhaps a long dead relative. I have had that sort of dream myself. I had died and was in an ambulance, and began crossing over, literally stepping through a membrane of some sort where I could see a path leading away from this world, but then I thought of someone I loved dearly and changed my mind and was just able to come back. When I awoke, this dream was still very vivid. I have a very low pulse rate so it is possible that my cerebrum was not receiving the oxygenated blood that it needed. Our knowledge of brain physiology is still very limited but I hope it can help Ms. Giering.

Hildegard stated that she had many experiences of a Living Light or Presence from childhood on, of a divine spark in everything, of cosmic beings and processes. Which inspired her creativity, music (reflective in part of angels singing), her love of nature, her ecological, healing and spiritual pursuits. She wrote at one point in her 40s when she fell seriously ill, that her illness was in part due to her decision not to reveal her visions. Which she recorded from then on. In my experience, when you have or enter into experiences that science can't explain you have to let your direct experiences plus your intuition be your guide and authority. She said in a letter: "I do not know myself, either in body or soul. And I consider myself as nothing. I reach out to the living God and turn everything over to the Divine." I think her key message is, if it intuitively feels right to you: surrender to something greater. And do what you sense you should. It's not something anyone can decide in my view except by following their conscience or innate sense of the right path for them. I wish this composer the best in her challenges and expressing her creativity. I've got a feeling surrender is perhaps a big key for her. Best of luck.

Living in the landscape Hildegard von Bingen came from and myself suffering from consumption due to COPD I would rather pay a historical look at the times Hildegard lived in. The 12th Century was a time of agricultural problems and religious upheaval. It was what we nowadays would call a "sour-cucumber-time". Faith needed a strong personality with a vision and Hildegard had a strong will to lead despite her health problems. She overcame them with music and preaching for a better future. Her idea to build the cloister Eibingen across the river Rhein on a hill with an even today extraordinary beautiful outlook over the Rhein river valley must have given the people an elevating push. Her ideas to enhance agriculture and especially the growing of vines were a solid progress in these troubled times. Sorry, but I tend to see history from a "dry bread" perspective. Misery and hunger are driving forces, again and again.

Thank you for this moving article. I think you might consider that the meaning (or lack thereof) that you attribute to your visions does indeed make a difference to the use your spirit makes of them. All experience has a physiological cause (what else could it have?) but attributing this solely to an "illness" and seeing it as a deviation from some norm, as opposed to a door opening into another level of experience, might in fact preclude your subjective self from utilizing it as an artist and a spiritual being.

In this piece, Ms. Giering asks the question: Was the gorgeous music composed by a 12th-century mystic a product of her hallucinations, or a triumph over them? Since we moderns are all scientific and go by the facts, I thought I should first become familiar with the most important fact posed by this question. So I listened to some of Hildegard’s music. Basically it’s the expression of a sublime experience of eternal transcendence. It sure ain’t rock n roll. With that and a few other facts with which Ms. Giering provides us I venture an answer to her question: 1. Hildegard’s abnormal neurological condition made accessible rather intense abnormal experiences. 2. If we assume that these abnormal experiences inspired or made possible her musical creativity, we can say that her music was a product of her experiences. 3. However, that’s not the whole story. While the experiences might have allowed for her creativity, it was Hildegard herself who did something with those experiences. She created her music. In that sense, her music was a triumph over her abnormal states. 4. One final thing. She did this within a contemplative tradition. She did not invent it. She received it and used her creative powers to renew it.

As a psychologist and a Catholic Christian, I see considerable evidence to suggest that not all mystical experience is the product of physical or mental illness. In fact, so much evidence that I could not begin to outline it here. And I also know that to present it would not be unhelpful anyway because it would not be regarded as the sort of "proof" that modern secularism demands. Human beings have learned so much about how things work in our world that many have become convinced that we are capable of understanding everything, given enough time. This conviction is akin to making ourselves gods and, once having made ourselves such, we become comfortable dismissing the possibility of a Creator Who is wondrous beyond our imaginations. All of us are good at dismissing evidence that challenges our beliefs. After all, we have in the Church countless well-documented miracles, such as healings, that completely defy scientific explanation. But for some reason this evidence is not enough - just as the eye witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are not enough for those outside the Faith. On the other hand, I very much appreciate this essay and the courage of its author as she struggles to maintain her sense of self and meaning while experiencing such a debilitating condition. May she find healing. Perhaps her reflections on St. Hildegard will strengthen her and others like her who are afflicted by such difficult medical conditions.

I remember when there used to be such a thing as privacy that was appreciated and valued by people. Now, starting with "Blown Sideways Through Life", more and more one-person shows about what used to be people's private lives have been produced and performed. I'm sorry for Ms. Giering's situation. We don't need a show about it. It goes without saying I won't go see it.

Well, yes, I like Hildegard's music as much as anyone, but there is no denying that it was a product of deeply assimilated and tightly controlled craft and in fact rather mathematical. Gorgeous, yes, but composers don't just sit down and have visions and translate to the page.

Ms. Giering is very brave to share her experience, an intensive description of pain both physical and spiritual. Many artists, writers and musicians live on a fine line between creativity and mental health problems or spiritual despair. All too many artists seek refuge from their problems with alcohol and drugs, often curtailing their careers -- Hemingway and Faulkner are good examples. Ms. Giering has not fallen into this trap, but seeks to lead a normal life as far as possible, while continuing to make the most of her creativity. She is an inspiration for all of us.

Wonderful essay--the writing was so vivid I could almost feel the sensations Giering was describing. Bravo!

If you believe that mystical experiences do not exist except as psychological pathologies -- indeed cannot have any meaning with violating the mandatory tenets of a scientific worldview -- then Giering's musings make sense. As an article of modern faith there must be a simple biological explanation for all human experiences, including Hildegard's reveries. The contemporary scientific mind cannot conceive of a plausible alternative viewpoint. But here is an important difference between Hildegard's experiences and those of Giering: although she seems to have had a history of illness, Hildegard's experiences were joyful and ecstatic, as manifested in her music. Giering's hallucinatory events, on the other hand, were unpleasant and frightening. The mystical literature is replete with reports of ecstatic visions. They consistently describe an expansive joy and sense of cosmic unity. Ecstatic visions are typically the product of years of intense devotional practice and philosophical contemplation, endeavors that have largely disappeared from our busy western culture. They should properly be understood as lying at the opposite end of the experiential spectrum from Giering's hallucinations. They point to a level of human possibility far beyond the prosaic categories of reductionist materialism.

Some might hesitate to equate Hildegarde's genius to a physical cause or to equate her mystical visions with the hallucinations caused by modern drugs. Geniuses, like the rest of us, are subject to all kinds of physical and physic ills. Yet, it is more likely that their genius is the product of extraordinary intellectual power and talent than the product of physical dysfunctions. We could all be geniuses if that was all it took.

As a psychologist, I think the author has done an outstanding job of describing her personal experience. However, as someone familiar with Hildegard, I cannot conclude that Hildegard (and other visionaries) were necessarily suffering from pathologies. Some people have positive visions or ideas that they attribute to a deity; others attribute their negative visions or ideas to a devil or malign power or to mental or physical pathology. Visions are commonly found in cultures around the world, and may be stimulated by internal or external factors. Visions may be ecstatic and positive, or debilitating and negative. Were Hildegard's visions hallucinations? divine inspirations? or a strategy for a woman centuries before the #metoo movement to get men to listen and pay attention to her ideas? Certainly many religious figures (and most religious leaders back then were men) did pay attention to Hildegard and her ideas, whether conveyed in her sermons, letters or music. The records indicate Hildegard had bouts of illness, but chronic debilitation does not seem likely given her high productivity and activity levels. It is very hard to diagnose and draw lessons from physical or mental illness across miles or centuries or cultures. However, it is healthy and productive to find frameworks or reference points with which to analyze and cope with one's own life experiences, as the author has done. I like to think that my ancestors from Bingen knew of and were inspired by Hildegard.

This is a heart wrenching revelation and troublesome one. When will science be so advanced as to confect logical explanations of the processes that chemical foibles in our brain cause? Perhaps never to full satisfaction and rightly so. To be robbed of the mystery of the Universe that is lodged in out brains is to deplete the conscience of the art we are capable of. Let the prosaic science not limit the lyric universe of the art. And yet; what were the behavioral attachments in infancy that might have caused ills to accumulate and torment young souls? That is not for clinical science to discover and correct but for humanism we must exercise and social management to apply in order to build step by step lives of children to full realization; so when they do sing they sing in madrigals and not the opposite, such as the hooting and hollering of armies of troubled people who supplicate to an utterly deranged man whose visions are not of human heaven but of hell! May such experience help us vote in chorus to a better resolve, happier lives and masterful pieces of literary blessings such as the one written by Jenny Giering. Thank you Jenny!

Sympathy here from another chronic migraineur. Despite all my efforts over the past 25 years to power through and not let it become the dominant factor in my life, it is. Pain, unbidden anger, dysfunctional thinking, inability to talk, another lost day. It can be very wearing despite every effort to not let it be. The idea that Hildegard had migraine auras has long made perfect sense to me, in light of my own experience. Nobody knows what an aura is. I have been asking healers that question for two decades, and nobody really knows. Recently it has been shown to be similar to epileptic activity, random electric activity in certain parts of the brain. Great. Good to know. Now tell me, what causes that? What is an aura?