evere forms of epilepsy were favourable to inducing a
conviction of revelation. But the disease assumes various forms, and in
some cases it is expressed in the form of a period of mental excitement
and general irritability. All that is claimed is that, given the
complaint in its less severe forms in one with whom religious beliefs
are strong, there are present all the conditions for attributing the
resulting hallucinations to personal revelation or ecstatic vision. And
it is also true that while some patients after emerging from a fit of
epilepsy are in a dazed or confused condition, others have a very clear
recollection of all they have seen and heard. Mohammed simply took the
current explanation of cases of nervous derangement, and being a man of
strong religious feeling, naturally gave his visions a religious
interpretation. All the rest has to be explained in terms of the innate
genius of the man and of the circumstances of his time.

A similar case to the above is that of Emanuel Swedenborg. His followers
naturally resent the ascription of his visions and voices to a
pathologic origin, and point to his pronounced mental ability. And
certainly no one who is at all acquainted with the writings of
Swedenborg will question his great mental power, amounting at times to
positive genius. But here, again, we have strong religious conviction in
alliance with pathological conditions. Swedenborg's communications with
celestial beings were of a more frequent and more ordered character than
Mohammed's, but there is the same general likeness between them. Of his
first revelation he writes:--

"At ten o'clock I lay down in bed and was somewhat better; half an hour
after I heard a clamour under my head; I thought that then the tempter
went away; immediately there came over me a rigor so strong from the
head and the whole body, with some din, and this several times. I found
that something holy was over me. I thereupon fell asleep, and at about
twelve, one, or two o'clock in the night there came over me so strong a
shivering from head to foot, as if many winds rushed together, which
shook me, was indescribable, and prostrated me upon my face. Then, while
I was prostrated, I was in a moment quite awake, and saw that I was cast
down, and wondered what it meant. And I spoke as if I was awake, but
found that the word was put into my mouth, and I said, 'Omnipotent Jesus
Christ, as of Thy great grace Thou condescendest to come to so great