Quite normal people sometimes experience strange communications from a realm beyond their ordinary comprehension. Perhaps once or twice in their lives they will have a very vivid dream or a waking vision in which they see Christ himself, or angels or saints. These experiences are often inexplicable at the time, but they bring with them a certain assurance of having a real meaning, particularly when they are so unusual and unexpected. Such would seem to have been the experience of Mother Julian in her Revelations. But it is always necessary to examine such experiences critically and no one should readily accept them as of heavenly origin without a diligent testing of their nature and origin. St John of the Cross's writings make all this quite clear.

Let us now scrutinise more closely the happenings on that celebrated eighth of May. Were these shewings historical facts of divine origin or merely the dreams of a sick woman? This raises the question of the natural basis of mystical experience.