What do we do if someone tells us she has had a vision?  I thought of this question anew as I read through Princeton professor Elaine Pagel's recent study of the Book of Revelation.  For those who have not read it, the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament (and the Bible) presents the apostle John's recounting of a vision he was given about the last days of the world.  Not surprisingly, Revelation is a book that has spawned countless speculation about how the world will end, along with generating numerous end-time sects whose members have at times sold all their property to prepare for what they were told is the world's imminent end.  Its tentacles creep into almost every corner of the Western religious (broadly speaking) imagination.
     For Pagels, John's vision, though she believes he certainly saw it, has little or no connection to the future of the world.  Instead, she embeds it deeply in the historical context of the time.  It's not necessarily new information about God and his activity in the universe, but rather an amalgamation of previous prophecies reshaped to communicate various messages to the churches of John's day.
     While I certainly endorse seeking to understand the visions described in the Bible in the context of their time, I'm willing to give more weight to their applicability to the present day than perhaps Pagels might.  Nonetheless, I tread slowly when determining such applicability, much less when trying to use John's visions to make specific declarations about how the world will come to an end.  As Jesus made very clear, only God knows the ultimate details.
     All this is to say is that when we encounter people who claim to have had a vision and, even more, have recorded it in a book that has been with the world for thousands of years, we have to first ask ourselves one fundamental question:  can the metaphysical speak to the physical?
     If our answer is affirmative, we can then weigh the contents of this vision against other known visions to decide its value to us at the present moment.  If our answer is negative, well, the question is moot at best.  So our question becomes that one that is even more challenging:  how much are we willing to trust, after carefully evaluating them, communications from the metaphysical?
     For if we are willing to trust, really trust such things, we will never be the same.