{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.019630484988452657, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0023094688221709007, 'mean_word_length': 5.328467153284672, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Visions and Voices

This chapter, together with Chapter 7, presents a theory about encounters with God according to which God’s presence, as well as certain kinds of divine communication are, and always have been, experientially available to a much greater degree than is typically credited in the literature on divine hiddenness. The focus in this chapter is on sensory experiences of God—visions and voices, primarily. Chapter 7 then expands focus to consider any experience that might aptly be described as an encounter with God. Insofar as it implies that experiences of God’s presence and of communication from God are widely available, it undermines the reasons we might have for thinking that certain negatively valenced analogies—God as distant or neglectful lover, for example—are more apt than traditional positive analogies for characterizing divine love.