Understanding Ellen White

How the visions happened

No one set of circumstances describes how Ellen White received her visions. Nevertheless, many witnesses would agree that in her public visions they often began with exclamations of “Glory,” or “Glory to God,” followed by a complete loss of awareness to her surroundings. She did not appear to breathe during the course of a vision, whether it lasted a few minutes or for several hours. Immediately on entering a vision, with eyes wide open as if seeing some far object, her muscles became rigid and joints fixed; yet, her frequent movements and gestures were free and graceful. Stronger people attempted to control these movements on a few occasions without success. During her visions, her face was pleasant and retained its natural color with no appearance of faintness. Often she would lie or sit, while at other times she remained standing. When coming out of vision, no matter how bright her environment, her eyes required a time of adjustment, as when a person comes from the bright sunshine into a dark room. After the vision was over, she would often speak or write out what she had seen. ³ UEGW 83.2

Often her visions occurred while praying, whether in public or in private. A typical description went as follows: “While engaged in earnest prayer, I was lost to everything around me; the room was filled with light, and I was bearing a message to an assembly that seemed to be the General Conference.” ⁴ UEGW 84.1

Without Ellen White’s ministry, it has been frequently noted, the Adventist Church would probably not have survived the nineteenth century. And if it did, it would have had limited growth like the Advent Christian and Seventh Day Baptist Churches are today. UEGW 84.2

Physical phenomena in connection with her visions were more commonly observed in the first decades of her ministry. They provided tangible and convincing evidence to early believers of the supernatural character of her visions. During the last thirty years of Ellen White’s life, after her prophetic role was firmly established, she usually experienced “dreams” or “visions of the night.” ⁵ This was not unlike the experience of Daniel and others like him. ⁶ Ellen White differentiated between ordinary dreams and visionary dreams. ⁷ UEGW 84.3