THE dictionaries correctly single out the main peculiarity of trance
when they define it as a "state in which the soul seems passive,
or to have passed out of the body; a state of insensibility to
mundane things." But there are degrees in the depth of trances,
i.e., in the loss of mental activity and in the concomitant sundering
of the soul from the outside world and the body. It is only when
all consciousness has disappeared that the trance is complete.

Entire agreement reigns among the mystics regarding this,
the basal characteristic of their mode of worship. The description
(Chapter VI) of the Ascent of the Soul makes a long argument in
support of that affirmation superfluous. It will be sufficient to remind
the reader of Santa Theresa's descriptive classification. In the
Second Degree (Orison of Quiet), the understanding and memory
act only at intervals. When the will is active it "works in a
marvellous way without the least effort." In the Third Degree,
the mental quiescence has become deeper: "The powers of the
soul are incapable of occupying themselves with any other object
than God . . . ; the soul feels herself dying to the world." If,
in these two stages, the soul "is able to indicate, at least by signs,
what she experiences, in the Fourth Degree (Ecstasy or Rapture)
the soul is absorbed in enjoyment1 without understanding that
which she enjoys." "The soul seems to leave the organs which
she animates" (levitation). Finally, all consciousness may disappear
and, on waking, the soul may say in the words of Francis of Sales,
"I slept with my God and in the arms of the divine Presence and
I knew it not."

Most mystics believe, moreover, that the "suspended"
intelligence is replaced in the trance-state by a supernatural under-
standing; thus they would account for the conviction of revelation.

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