The personality of the prophet sinks entirely into the background;
he feels himself for the time being the mouthpiece of the
Almighty."[325]

[325] W. Sanday: The Oracles of God, London, 1892, pp. 49-56, abridged.

"We need to remember that prophecy was a profession, and that the
prophets formed a professional class. There were schools of the
prophets, in which the gift was regularly cultivated. A group of young
men would gather round some commanding figure--a Samuel or an
Elisha--and would not only record or spread the knowledge of his
sayings and doings, but seek to catch themselves something of his
inspiration. It seems that music played its part in their
exercises.... It is perfectly clear that by no means all of these Sons
of the prophets ever succeeded in acquiring more than a very small
share in the gift which they sought. It was clearly possible to
'counterfeit' prophecy. Sometimes this was done deliberately.... But
it by no means follows that in all cases where a false message was
given, the giver of it was altogether conscious of what he was
doing.[326]

[326] Op. cit., p. 91. This author also cites Moses's and Isaiah's
commissions, as given in Exodus, chaps. iii. and iv., and Isaiah, chap.
vi.

Here, to take another Jewish case, is the way in which Philo of
Alexandria describes his inspiration:--

"Sometimes, when I have come to my work empty, I have suddenly become
full; ideas being in an invisible manner showered upon me, and
implanted in me from on high; so that through the influence of divine
inspiration, I have become greatly excited, and have known neither the
place in which I was, nor those who were present, nor myself, nor what
I was saying, nor what I was writing, for then I have been conscious of
a richness of interpretation, an enjoyment of light, a most penetrating
insight, a most manifest energy in all that was to be done; having such
effect on my mind as the clearest ocular demonstration would have on
the eyes."[327]

[327] Quoted by Augustus Clissold: The Prophetic Spirit in Genius and
Madness, 1870, p. 67. Mr. Clissold is a Swedenborgian. Swedenborg's
case is of course the palmary one of audita et visa, serving as a basis
of religious revelation.

If we turn to Islam, we find that Mohammed's revelations all came from
the subconscious sphere. To the question in what way he got them--

"Mohammed is said to have answered that sometimes he heard a knell as
from