Joannes Stobaeus was a 5th-century AD compiler of Greek texts in Stobi, Macedonia. He likely read widely, and recorded many of the most interesting passages he came across from Greek authors, including poets and prose writers. The following seems to be a reference to the ancient Mysteries, religious rites, secret ceremonies and initiations, and what took place in them, perhaps a reference to the Eleusinian Mysteries
Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) was a Spanish mystic, Carmelite nun, and was canonized a Roman Catholic saint by Pope Gregory XV. In her autobiography, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, she describes many of her ecstatic visions of the Divine which should ring a few bells for Latter-day Saints.
Fifty years ago in April 1967, David Oman McKay (1873-1970), the ninth president of the LDS Church, gave a talk in the priesthood session of General Conference that was unique. It was entitled "Consciousness of God: Supreme Goal of Life."
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a noted poet, essayist, and journalist, perhaps best known for his collection of poems titled Leaves of Grass. He wrote of divine experiences on several occasions in his poems.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is widely known as a great 19th century transcendentalist essayist, poet, philosopher, naturalist, and historian, among other things. He is most well-known for his book Walden, and his essay "Civil Disobedience." The following comes from his poem titled "Inspiration."
In 1979 she had an experience while giving a eulogy at the funeral of a friend that forever changed her life. She later called it a "near-death-like" experience, being similar to many NDEs (including one she had earlier in life), but she was not near death at all. She describes it in one place this way...
Happy Halloween! For many people, however, today is not a happy day, but it is the most disliked day of the entire year. This is when people seem to celebrate the death, the macabre, evil, darkness, the shadows, wickedness, perhaps even Satan himself. Those things are a big turn off for many people, particularly the most religious and devout.
Sophia von Klingnau was a nun who lived in a convent in Klingnau, Switzerland, sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Her writings were published in the Schwesterbücher (Sister Books).
The SciShow Psych channel on YouTube published a video about near-death experiences, below. I've mentioned near-death experiences a couple times before in relationship to mysticism and visionary experience. They are very much related, it seems to me.
A kind reader reached out to me and asked me to elaborate how my writings about the nature of God work with Joseph Smith's First Vision, since it seems that his vision was meant to "clear up the confusion" surrounding the nature of God, the prevailing idea that God "was not made with body, parts or passions." Wasn't "the point" of his vision to "define for the world who/what God was"?