The Ellen G. White Letters and Manuscripts: Volume 1

Ellen Harmon's First Vision

It was in that period of uncertainty and perplexity, some two months after the “passing of the time,” that Ellen Harmon and four friends gathered for morning prayer in the home of Elizabeth Haines in Portland, Maine. “While praying,” she recorded, “the power of God came upon me as I never had felt it before. I was surrounded with light, and was rising higher and higher from the earth”⁴—not physically, but in a vision state. Ellen did not include in her account how long this experience lasted, but it would be the first of many hundreds of visions and prophetic dreams over the course of her life ministry. 1EGWLM 14.2

Many of these visions took place publicly where supporters and critics alike observed them. Descriptions compiled from eyewitnesses provide the following details (not all necessarily occurring with every vision): 1EGWLM 14.3

1. As the vision began, she would exclaim “Glory!” or “Glory to God!”—sometimes repeated one or more additional times.
2. She would experience a loss of physical strength.
3. Subsequently, she would often manifest supernatural strength.⁵
4. She would not breathe, but her heartbeat would continue normally, and the color in her cheeks would remain natural.
5. Occasionally she would speak words indicative of the scene she was seeing in vision.
6. Her eyes would remain open, not with a vacant stare, but as if she were intently watching something.
7. Her position might vary. Sometimes she would be seated, sometimes 15reclining, and sometimes she would walk about the room and make graceful gestures as she spoke of matters presented.
8. She would be unconscious of what was occurring about her. She would neither see, hear, feel, nor perceive in any way her immediate surroundings or events happening around her.
9. At the close of the vision she would draw a deep breath, followed in about a minute by another, and very soon her natural breathing would resume.
10. Immediately after the vision everything would seem very dark to her.
11. Within a short time she would regain her natural strength and abilities.⁶

The message received in that first vision of December 1844 did not explain their past experience to the small band of disillusioned Millerites, but it provided assurance that God had led them thus far and that He would continue to lead them to the glories of “the city” “if they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus.”⁷ 1EGWLM 14.4